merica's 


mm 


./' 


-,^^^ 


s 


AMERICA'S   AWAKENING 


Copyright,  Pach  Bros.,  N.  7.,  1906. 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Born,  New  York  City,  October  27,  1858. 

Graduated  Harvard,  1880. 

Elected  to  New  York  Assembly  as  Republican,  1882. 

Reelected,  1883  and  1884. 

Delegate  and  Chairman  of  Delegation,  National  Re- 
publican Convention,  1884. 

Ranchman  in  North  Dakota,  1884. 

Defeated  candidate  for  Mayor  of  NewYork  City,  1886. 

National  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  1889. 

President  Police  Board,  New  York  City,  1895. 

Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  1897. 

Organized  First  U.  S,  Volunteer  Cavalry  ("  Rough 
Riders"),  1898. 

Promoted  to  rank  of  Colonel  for  gallantry  at  battle  of 
Las  Guasimas. 

Elected  Governor  of  New  York,  1898. 

Elected  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  1900. 

Succeeded  to  the  Presidency  on  the  death  of  President 
McKinley,  1901. 

Elected  President,  1904. 

"  The  forces  that  tend  for  evil  are  great  and  terrible, 
but  the  forces  of  truth  and  love  and  courage  and  honesty 
and  generosity  and  syjnpathy  are  also  stronger  than  ever 
before." 


TT'^V'^r; 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/americasawakeninOOalleiala 


America's  Awakening 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF 
RIGHTEOUSNESS 
IN  HIGH  PLACES 


PHILIP  LORING  ALLEN 


New  York        Chicago        Toronto 

Fleming  H.   Revell   Company 
London        and       Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1906,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  80  Wabash  Avenue 
Toronto:  ^5  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      100    Princes    Street 


PREFACE 

THE  note  of  pessimism  has  been 
sounded  during  the  last  few  years 
by  many  of  the  leaders  in  American 
life  and  thought  Clergymen,  educators, 
publicists,  in  considering  social,  financial  and 
political  problems  have  been  fairly  appalled 
by  the  disclosures  made  in  regard  to  breaches 
of  sacred  trust,  the  worship  of  money  and  the 
reign  of  special  privilege.  Addresses  on  com- 
memorative and  other  occasions  have  been 
filled  with  their  lamentation.  Young  men 
entering  their  wider  world  heard  from  every 
side  of  the  low  state  to  which  the  public  mor- 
als of  this  country  had  fallen,  the  degradation 
of  its  politics,  the  scandals  of  its  finance. 

But  that  pessimistic  view  was,  alter  all, 
hopelessly  biassed.  It  was  quite  as  deficient 
in  perspective  as  the  glowing  tributes  of  the 
Fourth  of  July  orator.  Righteousness  and 
courage  and  duty  still  abode  among  Amer- 
icans. Because  of  them  the  afflicted  body 
contained  the  means  of  its  own  regeneration. 
It  is  the  effort  of  this  book,  without  in  any 
way  attempting  to  minimize  grave  and  actual 
perils,  to  present  some  of  the  facts  that  go  to 
5 


6  PREFACE 

Strengthen  the  hopeful  view  of  our  country's 
condition  and  its  future,  to  point  out  the 
symptoms  of  health  as  others  have  pointed 
out  the  symptoms  of  disease. 

That  there  has  been  an  awakening  of  the 
American  people  during  the  opening  years 
of  the  twentieth  century  is  now  an  accepted 
fact.  It  has  manifested  itself  in  two  main 
forms,  the  warfare  against  political  bosses  and 
the  warfare  against  specially  privileged  cor- 
porations. These  two  issues  are  to  all  intent 
one.  And  yet  the  story  of  the  great  move- 
ment for  political  and  business  honesty  can- 
not be  told  in  the  mere  list  of  rascals  jailed 
and  new  officials  elected.  Above  and  be- 
yond these  concrete  achievements  there  has 
been  a  bracing  of  the  moral  sense  of  the 
country  that  is  none  the  less  real  because  it 
cannot  be  accurately  measured.  The  ani- 
mating ideas  which  found  their  nearest  and 
most  needed  application  in  politics  are  in  a 
fair  way  to  permeate  other  departments  of 
our  life  as  well. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  old  ideals 
have  been  restored,  that  the  old  spirit  has 
reasserted  itself  and  that  a  nation  seemingly 
indifferent  has  responded  to  the  old  appeals. 
The  fact  is  that  our  standards  have  changed 
more  than  the  times  in  which  we  live.     We 


PREFACE  7 

see  the  evil  more  plainly  in  practices  that 
were  once  accepted  as  natural  and  inevitable. 
What  one  generation  condoned,  the  next  will 
not  tolerate. 

This  book  is  an  attempt  to  catch,  while  the 
subject  is  still  close  and  living,  some  of  the 
spirit  and  accomplishment  of  this  revival. 
Dealing,  as  it  must,  with  movements  still  in 
progress,  policies  only  half  worked  out  and 
men  still  active  in  the  same  fields,  it  cannot 
pretend  to  be  in  any  sense  a  critical  or  final 
history.  Yet  it  does  hope  to  make  the  citizen 
who  may  read  it  a  little  better  acquainted 
with  some  of  the  personalities  and  some  of 
the  forces  most  prominent  in  this  remarkable 
period,  to  suggest  motives  and  purposes  and 
explain  for  the  benefit  of  engagements  still 
to  come  in  what  ways  individuals  in  all  parts 
of  the  country  have  been  able  to  aid  the  gen- 
eral cause. 

Whether  it  be  called  the  "  moral  upheaval," 
the  "civic  renaissance,"  or  any  of  the  other 
names  which  observers  have  applied,  this 
movement  is,  after  all,  a  unit.  Its  record  is 
mainly  a  record  of  success,  in  fact  of  success 
beyond  the  reasonable  expectations  of  those 
who  have  been  its  leaders.  That  there  are 
here  some  stories  of  immediate  failure  or  dis- 
appointed hope  is  not  to  be  wondered  at. 


8  PREFACE 

But  even  if  the  next  few  years  see  still  more 
such  failures,  that  fact  takes  nothing  from  the 
significance  and  inspiration  of  this  chapter  in 
our  national  history.  If  all  concrete  results 
were  swept  away  a  revelation  would  remain 
of  the  power  which  the  individual,  the  every- 
day citizen,  possesses  against  entrenched 
privilege,  whether  financial  or  political. 

Besides  the  more  intimate  treatment  of  the 
leaders  themselves  and  the  invaluable  work  of 
those  who  were  not  leaders  and  merely  gave 
what  simple  service  they  could,  there  are 
some  general  aspects  of  the  facts  to  be  re- 
garded. There  is  the  improvement  of  polit- 
ical standards  everywhere,  making  our  cam- 
paigns cleaner  and  fairer,  the  development 
of  means  by  which  the  people  can  make 
their  will  more  directly  effective  in  the  affairs 
of  government,  and  finally  the  constructive 
work  in  legislation  and  administration  which 
has  followed  upon  the  victories  of  reform  in 
our  states  and  cities. 

While  this  account  is  based  in  considerable 
part  upon  the  results  of  personal  observation, 
grateful  acknowledgment  must  be  made  to 
many  who  have  given  help  and  advice  in  its 
preparation.  Magazine  and  newspaper  arti- 
cles have  been  freely  availed  of,  and  among 
the  books  which  have  been  drawn  upon  may 


PREFACE  9 

be  named  Alfred  Hodder's  "  A  Fight  for  the 
City,"  Frederick  C.  Howe's  "  The  City,  the 
Hope  of  Democracy,"  Alden  Freeman's  "  A 
Year  in  Politics,"  Charles  Willis  Thomp- 
son's "  Party  Leaders  of  the  Time,"  and 
the  writings  of  Lincoln  Stefiens,  as  well  as 
the  reports  of  proceedings  of  the  national 
conferences  for  Good  City  Government.  A 
portion  of  this  book  has  appeared  in  the 
Outlook  and  the  map  illustrating  the  prog- 
ress of  primary  reform  is  reproduced  here 
by  courtesy  of  that  periodical. 

New  York,  September  ^7,  igo6 


CONTENTS 

I.  How  THE  Awakening  Came 

II.  Graft  Among  the  Fathers 

III.  Roosevelt  the  Inspiration 

IV.  La  Follette's  Up-hill  Fight    . 

V.  The  Jerome  Campaign 

VI.  Folk  and  His  Following  . 

VII.  The  Enforcement  of  Law 

VIII.  Philadelphia's  Revolution 

IX.  Cleveland  and  the  Three-Cent  Fare 

X.  New  Jersey's  Stirring 

XI.  The  Resources  of  Reform 

XII.  The  New  Politics      ... 

XIII.  Humdrum  Work  for  Good 

XIV.  The  Trend  Towards  a  Pure  Democ 

RACY 

XV.  The  Moral  Wave  and  the  Average 

Man 


13 
32 
44 
59 
90 
122 
139 

155 

182 

199 
214 
229 
244 

256 

277 


II 


LIST  OF  PORTRAITS 


Theodore  Roosevelt   . 
Robert  M.  La  Follette 
WiLUAM  Travers  Jerome 
Joseph  W.  Folk    . 
John  Weaver 
Tom  L.  Johnson   . 
Everett  Colby     . 

CHART 
Primary  Laws  in  the  United  States 


Facing  page 
Title 

59 

90 

122 

155 
182 
199 


264 


19 


America's   Awakening 


HOW  THE  AWAKENING  CAME 

ONE  of  those  public  nuisances,  a  pro- 
fessional reformer,  called  recently  at 
the  mayor's  office.  The  attendant 
in  charge  of  the  door  sprang  to  his  feet, 
bowed   with   great  respect,  threw  the  door 

open  wide  with  a  "  Walk  right  in,  Mr. . 

His  Honour  will  be  mighty  glad  to  see  you." 

"  Why,  how  is  this?"  exclaimed  the  visitor. 
"  I've  called  here  dozens  of  times  and 
usually  I  had  to  cool  my  heels  in  the  waiting 
room.  You  never  were  so  hospitable  be- 
fore." 

"  No,  sir,"  said  the  doorkeeper  thought- 
fully, "  but  things  is  different  now." 

The  remarkable  point  about  this  story  is 
the  number  of  places  of  which  at  the  date  of 
this  writing,  it  might  be  true.  Had  it  been 
told,  say,  in  1890,  one  would  perhaps  have 
hesitated  and  then  said,  "That  must  have 
been  in  Detroit.  They've  elected  a  man 
13 


14  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

named  Pingree  there  with  all  manner  of  fan- 
tastic reform  ideas."  Had  it  been  told  in 
1 90 1  the  hearer  would  undoubtedly  have 
guessed  New  York,  where  the  Low  adminis- 
tration had  just  been  inaugurated,  although 
Mark  Fagan  in  Jersey  City  and  Tom  L. 
Johnson  in  Cleveland  were  both  newly  elected 
mayors  with  some  ideas  for  improving  condi- 
tions in  their  cities  and  might  have  been  al- 
ternative guesses.  The  office  of  "  Golden 
Rule  "  Jones  in  Toledo,  too,  might  haf  e  been 
such  a  haven  for  reformers. 

But  in  this  year  1906,  that  incident  at  the 
mayor's  door  which,  as  a  mere  matter  of  fact, 
is  told  of  Philadelphia,  might  just  as  well 
have  happened  at  St.  Louis  or  Milwaukee,  or 
Cleveland  or  Jersey  City  or  Cincinnati  or 
Minneapolis  or  Portland,  Oregon,  or  a  score 
of  other  cities  great  and  small.  With  a 
governor  substituted  for  a  mayor  it  might  be 
told  of  the  state  capitols  of  Missouri  or  Wis- 
consin or  New  York  or  Illinois  or  a  dozen 
other  states.  "Things  is  different"  nearly 
everywhere. 

The  country  seems,  in  fact,  to  be  emerging 
from  a  period  when  the  rule  of  some  boss  or 
other  was  accepted  as  the  normal  and  unal- 
terable condition  of  American  life.  Some 
Americans  lived  under  extremely  benevolent 


HOW  THE  AWAKENING  CAME  1 5 

despotisms,  some  under  conditions  most 
galling.  The  cause  and  cure  of  bossism  had 
been  for  twenty  years  one  of  the  most  prolific 
topics  of  discussion  in  print.  There  were 
hierarchies  of  state  bosses,  city  bosses,  and 
ward  bosses,  interrelated,  through  natural 
cooperation  within  the  party  and  secret  and 
corrupt  understandings  between  opposite 
parties.  All  of  them  received  defeats  now 
and  then,  but  two  successive  defeats  against 
the  boss-made  candidates  was  something  al- 
most unprecedented.  Scholars  began  to 
study  the  boss  as  they  would  a  scientific  speci- 
men, analyzing  and  describing  his  complicated 
activities.  His  average  lease  of  power  was 
solemnly  computed  at  eight  years.  And  the 
final  proof  of  his  acceptance  as  a  permanent 
force  was  furnished  when  publicists  began  to 
point  out  that  instead  of  being  an  unmitigated 
evil,  as  the  reformers  had  always  insisted,  the 
boss  really  performed  some  very  useful  func- 
tions for  society. 

One  of  the  so-called  good  things  which  the 
boss  had  done  was  to  abolish  completely  the 
legislative  lobby.  While  he  reigned,  the 
bribery  of  an  individual  senator,  assembly- 
man or  alderman  was  merely  gratuitous  and 
dangerous  folly.  People  who  sought  legisla- 
tion, whether  good  or  bad,  had  only  one  man 


l6  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

to  see.  So  this  one  man  had  many  chances 
to  make  friends  among  the  best  intentioned 
elements.  Contributions  to  campaign  funds 
were  safer  and  more  respectable  than  older 
and  pettier  methods  of  influencing  legislation. 
"  Never  before,"  wrote  a  veteran  editor  in 
1897,  and  the  quotation  is  typical  of  the  time, 
"  has  bossism  presented  itself  so  offensively 
as  this  year.  In  the  past  there  has  been 
more  or  less  pretense  of  reserve.  This  year 
the  bosses  threw  off  all  disguise.  They  de- 
clared that  bossism  is  the  ideal  perfection  of 
government  with  a  democracy." 

Now  it  happens  to  be  true  that  of  the  six 
bosses  named  in  the  article  above  quoted  as 
the  most  powerful  of  their  class,  three  are 
now  dead,  two  have  formally  retired  from 
active  politics,  and  the  last  has  been  deposed 
by  a  stronger  rival.  But  when  the  average 
American  citizen  to-day  goes  over  the  list 
of  the  figures  most  prominent  in  our  politics, 
he  does  not  utter  the  names  of  these  bosses' 
successors. 

Since  the  twentieth  century  opened  there 
has  moved  into  national  prominence  a  group 
of  new  personalities  which  have,  for  the  time 
being  at  least,  overtopped  the  politicians  of 
the  older  and  more  sordid  school.  They 
may  be  spoken  of  as  a  group,  if  only  because 


HOW  THE  AWAKENING  CAME  1 7 

of  the  frequency  with  which  their  names  are 
uttered  together  on  pubHc  platforms  and  in 
common  speech.  As  a  matter  of  fact  they 
are  far  removed  from  one  another  not  only 
geographically,  but  in  other  ways.  They  are 
identified  with  different  issues.  Until  very 
recently  scarcely  any  one  of  them  had  so 
much  as  shaken  hands  with  more  than  two 
or  three  of  the  others.  The  men  who  have 
led  in  the  good  fight  of  the  past  few  years, 
have  been,  like  the  characters  in  Gilbert's 
ballad,  "  total  strangers  to  each  other."  But 
the  very  fact  that  the  name  of  one  of  these 
men  inevitably  suggests  the  others  shows  in 
itself  that  in  the  mind  of  the  people  these  men 
collectively  stand  for  an  idea,  and  that  idea, 
working  itself  out  in  divers  forms  is  to-day 
the  animating  force  of  our  politics. 

It  is  rash  to  say  of  any  development,  in  our 
complex  and  ever  changing  political  life,  that 
an  event  or  combination  of  events  never  oc- 
curred before  or  that  its  results  are  certain  to 
be  permanent.  But  the  achievements  of  the 
past  two  years  are  wonderful  enough  without 
any  attempt  to  exaggerate  their  significance. 
The  suddenness  as  well  as  the  tremendous 
power  of  the  forces  which  have  been  stirred 
make  the  word  "  upheaval "  accurately  de- 
scriptive of  this  period. 


l8  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

No  wide-spread  and  effective  rising  is  ever 
so  abrupt  as  it  seems.  Even  in  the  political 
awakenings  which  on  their  face  have  seemed 
most  sudden  we  know  that  there  have  been 
long  periods  of  preparation.  We  can  illus- 
trate this  in  the  present  instance  by  simply- 
recapitulating,  without  any  attempt  at  crit- 
ical comment,  some  of  the  capital  events  of 
the  past  ten  years  along  the  line  that  goes 
by  the  general  name  of  "  reform."  It  is  not 
necessary  to  vouch  for  every  act  of  every 
man  who  has  had  a  part  in  the  good  fight 
All  the  leaders,  without  exception,  are  charged 
with  insincerity  and  selfish  motives.  All  have 
been  subject  to  both  ridicule  and  denuncia- 
tion. Nearly  all  have  been  opposed  by  many 
intelligent,  conscientious  and  patriotic  men. 
Many  of  them  have,  by  the  admission  of 
their  strongest  admirers,  grave  defects  of 
temperament.  We  are  too  close  to  get  the 
correct  historical  perspective  upon  any  of 
them.  But  we  can  say  of  all  these  men  that 
they  have  obtained  results,  that  the  work  of 
each  one  has  served  as  an  inspiration  to 
others,  and,  most  significant  of  all,  that  their 
own  people  have  believed  in  them  and  trusted 
them. 

What  we  have  here  is  not  in  a  strict  sense 
the  story  of  one  "  movement "  appearing  in 


HOW  THE  AWAKENING  CAME  19 

different  developments  in  various  parts  of 
the  country.  Yet  one  who  reads  the  record 
comes  to  feel  as  if  there  must  have  been 
some  single  purpose  behind  it  all.  We  can 
see  the  beginnings  in  rather  feeble  and 
widely  separated  instances,  and  later  events 
occurring  simultaneously  in  a  dozen  localities 
seem  to  be  in  response  to  the  same  mo- 
mentum. 

In  1899  the  first  edition  of  **  Who's  Who 
in  America"  was  issued.  Its  editors  aimed 
to  include  among  its  8,602  biographies  all 
the  Americans  of  national  prominence,  the 
men  whose  names  were  likely  to  figure  in 
the  news  or  public  discussion  of  any  kind, 
and  whose  records  intelligent  readers  might 
have  occasion  to  look  up. 

This  volume  furnishes  an  excellent  starting 
point  for  a  brief  review  of  the  reform  move- 
ment's progress.  Hazen  S.  Pingree  of  De- 
troit and  Samuel  M.  Jones  of  Toledo  have 
already  been  alluded  to  as,  in  a  sense,  forerun- 
ners of  the  movement  that  has  since  taken  on 
such  proportions.  In  this  year  of  departure, 
Pingree  was  serving  his  last  term  as  gov- 
ernor of  Michigan.  His  experiment  when 
mayor  of  Detroit  at  setting  the  unemployed 
to  work  on  municipal  potato  patches  more 
than  any  other  one  thing  had  attracted  the 


20  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

notice  of  the  country  to  this  original-minded 
shoe  manufacturer.  "Golden  Rule"  Jones 
was  mayor  of  Toledo,  but  up  to  this  time 
had  been  simply  a  Republican  mayor,  like 
a  thousand  others  in  the  country.  Certain 
cities,  San  Francisco  among  them,  were  en- 
joying at  the  time  reform  administrations. 
Theodore  Roosevelt  was  governor  of  New 
York.  In  New  York  City,  however,  Tam- 
many was  in  full  control.  Seth  Low,  entered 
in  "  Who's  Who  "  as  president  of  Columbia 
University,  had  been  the  candidate  of  the 
Citizens  Union  in  the  first  mayoralty  cam- 
paign of  the  Greater  City,  and  had  made 
such  a  close  second  that,  had  the  Republi- 
cans voted  for  him  instead  of  nominating  a 
separate  candidate.  General  Tracy,  their  com- 
bined vote  would  have  been  larger  than  that 
of  Van  Wyck,  the  successful  candidate.  The 
memory  of  other  defeats  of  fighters  against 
corruption  in  one  form  or  another  was  still 
very  vivid  in  this  year  1899.  Robert  M. 
La  Follette,  in  Wisconsin,  had  just  received 
his  second  defeat  for  the  Republican  nomi- 
nation for  governor.  The  desertion  on  the 
very  eve  of  the  convention  of  certain  dele- 
gates upon  whose  votes  he  counted,  had 
given  rise  to  serious  allegations  of  bribery. 
Dr.  L.  F.  C.  Garvin,  leader  in  the  still  unsuc- 


HOW  THE  AWAKENING  CAME  21 

cessful  fight  against  the  system  of  Rotten 
Boroughs  which  perpetuated  the  sway  of  the 
Rhode  Island  oligarchy,  had  in  the  same 
year  suffered  his  fourth  defeat  for  Congress. 

So  much  might  be  gleaned  from  the  stand- 
ard reference  book  of  seven  years  ago  with 
its  hints  somewhat  elaborated.  It  would  be 
unreasonable  to  criticise  it  for  not  mention- 
ing at  this  time  such  inconspicuous  citizens 
as  William  Travers  Jerome  of  New  York, 
Joseph  W.  Folk  of  St.  Louis,  or  John  Weaver 
of  Philadelphia,  to  say  nothing  of  a  dozen 
other  men  who  might  now  be  named  as  hav- 
ing done  work  comparable  to  theirs,  though 
on  a  Idss  conspicuous  scale.  Mr.  Jerome 
was,  in  fact,  at  this  time,  a  justice  of  the 
court  of  special  sessions  in  New  York  City, 
a  bench  created  to  try  without  a  jury  cer- 
tain designated  classes  of  misdemeanours. 
Weaver  and  Folk  were  not  in  office  at  all. 

The  facts  above  stated  constituted  the  sum 
and  substance  of  the  reform  hopes  as  they 
were  through  most  of  the  year  1899.  Before 
the  November  elections,  the  Mazet  Com- 
mittee appointed  by  the  State  Legislature 
was  carrying  on  its  inquiry  into  New  York 
City's  real  as  distinguished  from  its  theoret- 
ical form  of  government.  In  the  elections 
that  year  Mayor  Phelan  of  San  Francisco 


22  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

was  reelected,  and  Thomas  S.  Hayes  was 
chosen  mayor  of  Baltimore  on  a  good  gov- 
ernment platform.  More  remarkable,  Mayor 
Jones,  nominated  by  petition,  after  the  Re- 
publican convention  had  refused  to  renomi- 
nate him,  had  been  reelected  in  the  spring  as 
mayor  of  Toledo  as  *'  a  man  without  a  party," 
receiving  something  like  seventy  per  cent,  of 
the  total  vote. 

In  1900,  the  year  which  saw  Roosevelt 
reluctantly  elevated  to  the  vice  presidency. 
Folk,  a  prosperous  young  lawyer,  was  picked 
for  the  place  of  circuit  attorney  in  St.  Louis, 
and  La  Follette,  having  fairly  beaten  the  op- 
position at  last,  received  the  unanimous  nom- 
ination of  his  party  convention  and  in 
November  was  elected  governor  of  Wiscon- 
sin. From  this  time  on,  every  year  has  seen 
a  similar  set  of  events  occurring  in  different 
forms  in  different  localities  and  yet  properly  to 
be  mentioned  together.  In  the  closing  months 
of  1900  and  the  early  part  of  190 1  came  "  the 
hunting  of  John  Doe"  in  New  York,  the 
startling  series  of  raids  upon  dives,  pool-rooms 
and  gambling  houses.  Justice  Jerome  some- 
times participating  in  person  in  spite  of  talk 
about  "  the  dignity  of  the  bench."  The 
meeting  at  the  New  York  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce which  led  to  the  creation  of  the  famous 


HOW  THE  AWAKENING  CAME  23 

"  Committee  of  Fifteen,"  had  been  held  late  in 
November.  The  municipal  campaign  was 
just  a  yeai"  ahead,  and  Richard  Croker  who, 
two  years  previously,  had  made  before  the 
Mazet  Committee  the  unembarrassed  declara- 
tion that  he  was  "  working  for  my  own  pocket 
all  the  time,"  tried  to  anticipate  the  work  of  the 
reform  forces  by  appointing  a  Tammany 
Committee  of  Five  ostensibly  for  vice  sup- 
pression. His  committee,  it  may  be  added, 
had  very  little  to  do  with  the  horrible  dis- 
closures of  that  year.  Jerome  had  borne  the 
chief  part  in  awakening  New  Yorkers  to  the 
appalling  conditions  which  had  grown  up 
under  a  system  of  lax  administration  and 
police  blackmail.  Nevertheless,  by  reason  of 
his  "  sensational "  methods,  he  was  regarded 
as  an  "  unsafe  "  candidate,  and  it  was  with 
extreme  reluctance  that  the  fusion  against 
Tammany  was  induced  to  accept  him  as  its 
nominee  for  district  attorney.  The  predic- 
tions, of  course,  proved  ludicrously  untrue  ; 
instead  of  being  a  drag  upon  the  ticket, 
Jerome  was  its  chief  motive  force. 

While  Low  and  Jerome  were  winning  their 
victory  in  New  York,  three  other  cities  were 
having  important  off  year  elections  of  their 
own.  Tom  L.  Johnson  "  manufacturer- 
capitalist  "  and  ex-congressman  was  carrying 


24  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

the  Cleveland  mayoralty  on  a  platform  of 
"  equal  taxation  and  three-cent  fares  with  uni- 
versal transfers."  Mark  Fagan,  across  the 
Hudson  River  from  New  York  was  bringing 
Jersey  City  a  reform  government.  In  Toledo 
Mayor  Jones  had  a  second  time  appealed  to 
the  people  and  been  chosen  mayor  as  an  in- 
dependent. 

Chief  among  the  events  of  1902  may  be 
mentioned  for  the  purpose  of  this  summary, 
the  St.  Louis  and  Minneapolis  exposures. 
The  young  circuit  attorney  of  St.  Louis,  who 
had  shown  unexpected  aggressiveness  and 
independence  by  his  prompt  prosecutions  for 
frauds  in  the  election  which  put  him  in  office, 
received,  early  in  this  year  from  a  newspaper 
reporter,  uncommonly  definite  intimations  re- 
garding a  large  boodle  transaction  in  the  city 
council.  Following  out  his  sworn  duty  with- 
out delay,  in  little  more  than  a  year  he  had 
secured  twenty  convictions  for  bribery  and 
perjury,  of  conspicuous  citizens  both  in  and 
out  of  office,  all  but  six  of  which,  be  it  noted, 
were  afterwards  reversed  by  the  supreme 
court.  The  Minneapolis  disclosures  came 
through  the  grand  jury.  They  concerned 
"  police  graft "  rather  than  the  larger  munic- 
ipal boodle.  But  their  extraordinary  in- 
cident was  the  sudden  flight  and  practical  ab- 


HOW  THE  AWAKENING  CAME  25 

dication  of  Mayor  Ames.  So  the  reformers 
were  able  to  go  about  the  work  of  cleaning 
up  the  city  as  one  might  undertake  the  same 
task  in  a  house  that  had  been  abandoned  by 
some  unpleasant  tenants.  In  this  year  La 
Follette  was  reelected  as  governor  of  Wis- 
consin, but  Wisconsin  was  in  the  habit  of 
reelecting  her  governors,  and  this  victory  in 
itself  did  not  signify  so  much  as  that  of 
Dr.  Garvin  who  won  the  governorship  of 
Rhode  Island  for  the  first  time  on  a  platform 
promising  a  constitutional  reform  which, 
however,  the  opposition  of  the  small  town  rep- 
resentatives in  the  State  Senate  prevented  his 
carrying  out. 

Aside  from  the  postal  fraud  indictments  at 
Washington,  the  year  1903  was  one  of 
ground  held  rather  than  ground  gained  for 
good  causes.  It  was  a  year  of  reflections, 
Fagan,  the  Republican  mayor  of  Jersey  City, 
Jones  the  Independent  mayor  of  Toledo,  and 
again  Garvin,  the  Democratic  governor  of 
Rhode  Island. 

It  is  not  until  the  autumn  of  1904  that  we 
see  approaching  the  actual  crest  of  the  "  Re- 
form Wave."  La  Follette  in  Wisconsin  had 
failed  during  his  second  term,  to  secure,  at 
least  in  satisfactory  form,  the  legislation  for 
which  he  had  for  years  been  fighting  and 


26  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING" 

which  his  party  platforms  had  repeatedly 
promised.  Offering  himself  as  a  candidate 
for  a  third  term,  the  governor  was  plunged 
early  in  the  year  into  an  exceedingly  bitter 
contest  in  the  local  primaries.  His  own  nomi- 
nation by  the  regular  party  convention  led  to 
a  formal  split  in  the  party.  The  National  Re- 
publican convention  which  nominated  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  late  in  June,  recognized  the 
bolting  anti-La  Follette  faction,  thus  adding 
another  powerful  influence  to  those  which  the 
governor  was  already  opposing.  Meanwhile 
Folk  in  Missouri  had  been  conducting  a  long 
and  strenuous  compaign  for  the  Democratic 
nomination  for  governor  of  Missouri,  in  the 
face  of  the  united  and  desperate  resistance  of 
the  old  Bourbon  machine  of  the  State.  No- 
vember brought  the  election  of  both  these 
militant  candidates  and  the  unusual  degree 
of  political  independence  engendered  was 
shown  by  the  election  of  Democratic  gov- 
ernors in  six  of  the  states  carried  by  Roose- 
velt. 

On  January  i,  1905,  most  of  these  new 
state  officials  were  inaugurated.  La  Follette, 
after  securing  the  passage  of  his  long-fought 
railroad  rate  bill,  accepted  election  to  the 
United  States  Senate,  though  he  did  not  take 
his  seat  till  nearly  a  year  later.     In   May 


HOW  THE  AWAKENING  CAME  2^ 

supine  Philadelphia  gave  one  of  the  most  in- 
spiring exhibitions  of  political  courage  and 
independence  this  country  has  ever  seen. 
The  attempt  of  the  machine  to  force  through 
an  utterly  indefensible  lease  of  the  city  gas 
works  to  a  private  corporation,  led  to  a  "  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  "  by  Mayor  Weaver 
and  speedily  to  the  utter  rout  of  the  old  and 
intrenched  ring.  The  Armstrong  insurance 
investigation  began  two  months  before  elec- 
tion in  New  York,  and  unquestionably  had  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  arousing  public  senti- 
ment against  corrupt  alliances  of  business  and 
politics.  It  was  one  of  a  succession  of  un- 
usual preelection  developments.  Jerome,  in 
New  York,  now  finishing  his  four  year  term 
as  district  attorney,  issued  a  flat  defiance  to 
the  bosses  of  both  parties.  He  was  nomina- 
ted as  an  independent  candidate,  began  an 
apparenriy  hopeless  campaign  for  reelection. 
In  Boston,  similarly,  John  B.  Moran  was  seek- 
ing the  district  attorneyship  of  Suffolk  County 
against  the  nominees  of  both  the  regular  par- 
ties. In  New  Jersey,  Everett  Colby,  a  young 
man  who  had  served  three  terms  in  the  As- 
sembly had  received  the  Republican  nomina- 
tion for  State  Senator  of  Essex  County, 
which,  by  reason  of  his  attack  upon  the 
powerful  local  boss,  Major  Lentz,  assumed  a 


28  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

significance  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  im- 
portance of  the  office  itself. 

The  elections  of  that  November  resulted 
in  such  "wholesale  boss-smashing" — the 
reiterated  newspaper  phrase  is  perfectly  de- 
scriptive— ^as  the  whole  previous  history  of 
the  country  could  not  parallel.  Jerome  car- 
ried New  York,  Moran  was  elected  to  the 
corresponding  office  in  Boston,  the  City  party 
elected  its  candidates  by  a  large  majority  in 
Philadelphia,  a  fusion  of  Democrats  and  Pro- 
hibitionists elected  the  only  State  official 
chosen  in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  against 
the  candidate  of  the  Penrose  organization. 
Ohio  elected  a  Democratic  governor  on  a 
law  enforcement  platform,  and  the  choice 
of  anti-machine  officials  in  Cincinnati  was 
followed  by  the  formal  announcement  of 
the  retirement  from  politics  of  George  B.  Cox, 
the  Republican  boss  of  that  city.  Johnson 
was  reelected  in  Cleveland  and  Fagan  in  Jer- 
sey City.  In  Maryland  the  constitutional 
amendment  which,  in  the  guise  of  a  safeguard 
against  "  negro  domination  "  would  in  reality 
have  enabled  the  partisan  election  officials  to 
disfranchise  many  thousands  of  white  voters 
at  will,  and  thus  to  perpetuate  the  party  in 
power  almost  indefinitely,  was  defeated  at  the 
polls.     In    the    far    West,   an  anti-Mormon 


HOW  THE  AWAKENING  CAME  29 

mayor  was  elected  at  Salt  Lake  City,  in  pro- 
test against  the  control  of  the  Church  of  the 
Latter  Day  Saints  in  politics,  and  in  Portland, 
Oregon,  the  reform  Republicans  who  had 
been  defeated  in  the  party  primaries  voted 
with  the  Democrats  to  put  a  good  govern- 
ment mayor,  Harry  Lane,  in  office. 

In  the  early  months  of  1906  must  be  added 
to  these  achievements  the  breaking  of  the 
Delaware  Senatorial  deadlock  in  Delaware 
not,  as  in  1903,  by  a  compromise  with  J.  Ed- 
ward Addicks,  but  by  his  decisive  defeat. 

The  altered  temper  of  the  country  is  re- 
flected again  in  the  number  of  long  deferred 
measures  which  Congress  and  the  State  Legis- 
latures have  passed  after  years  of  delay. 
Thus  the  national  pure  food  bill  became 
law  after  literally  seventeen  years  of  post- 
ponements, and  the  railroad  rate  bill  after  a 
somewhat  less  period  of  agitation,  to  say 
nothing  of  minor  measures  which  have  been 
passed  in  response  to  an  expressed  public 
opinion. 

In  August  of  1905  the  little  town  of  La- 
crosse, Kansas,  was  claiming  the  distinction 
of  having  in  its  jail  the  only  man  ever  put 
behind  prison  bars  in  America  for  violation 
of  an  anti-trust  law.  This  man  was  not  a 
great  trust  magnate.     Very  few  newspaper 


30  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

readers  would  recognize  his  name  in  print. 
He  was  merely  the  secretary  of  an  incon- 
spicuous Grain  Dealers*  Association  which 
had  tried  to  form  a  pool  of  the  millers  at 
Bison.  Yet,  after  three  5'^ears  of  litigation  the 
United  States  supreme  court  had  sustained 
his  conviction,  the  governor  of  Kansas  re- 
fused a  pardon  and  the  culprit  was  actually 
serving  a  short  sentence.  That  half  whim- 
sical distinction  Kansas  is  not  likely  to  enjoy 
undisputed  for  long.  The  number  of  pro- 
ceedings begun  in  1906  to  enforce  the  penal 
provisions  of  existing  laws  against  discrimina- 
tions and  unfair  or  oppressive  business  meth- 
ods makes  absolutely  a  new  record.  Not 
only  are  the  federal  authorities  bestirring 
themselves,  but  state  and  local  officials  as 
well.  The  country  is  beginning  to  hope  that 
punishment  for  violating  laws  of  this  class 
may  in  time  fall  as  regularly  upon  "  the  man 
behind  the  octopus  "  as  it  does  upon  violators 
of  other  laws  which  carry  imprisonment  as 
their  penalty. 

This  cursory  review  of  the  main  events  at 
least  serves  to  show  how  wide  and  how  pow- 
erful have  been  the  manifestations  of  this 
American  awakening.  We  identify  it  with  a 
few  great  names,  we  personify  it  in  a  few 
conspicuous  figures.    Yet  these  leaders,  after 


HOW  THE  AWAKENING  CAME  3 1 

all,  have  been  only  leaders.  If  the  people 
had  not  followed,  they  could  have  accom- 
plished nothing  at  all.  In  almost  every  case 
of  recent  reform  triumphs,  indeed,  there  are 
the  records  of  previous  defeats  of  candidates 
on  much  the  same  issues  upon  which  they 
have  recently  succeeded,  and  failures  of  de- 
serving laws  which  have  lately  been  passed 
on  their  merits.  The  causes  and  the  men 
were  as  worthy  then  as  now.  Evidently 
the  change  has  been  less  in  the  candidates 
and  the  issues  than  in  the  people  themselves. 
Imagine  the  identical  measures  and  the  men 
of  1904  and  1905  to  have  offered  themselves 
in  1894  and  1895,  and  it  cannot  be  seriously 
supposed  that  results  comparable  to  those  of 
the  present  could  then  have  been  accom- 
plished. 

"  One  knocker  beating  his  hammer  into  a 
muck-rake,"  as  Life  cynically  observes, 
"  does  not  make  a  millennium."  Yet  proba- 
bly more  of  our  "  hammers  "  than  ever  before 
are  now  employed  at  constructive  work.  We 
are  not  only  making  new  and  better  laws  but 
we  are  enforcing  the  old  ones  more  effectively. 
And  in  doing  these  things  we  are  making  a 
chapter  of  American  history  which,  for  in- 
spiration, has  no  parallel  outside  the  years  of 
the  Revolution  and  the  fight  against  slavery. 


II 

GRAFT  AMONG  THE  FATHERS 

OUR  American  awakening  has  mani- 
fested itself  first  in  the  eradication 
of  graft.  Rubbish  has  to  be  cleared 
away  before  any  constructive  work  can  begin. 
Yet,  if  only  for  the  sake  of  perspective,  it 
cannot  be  too  much  emphasized  that  while 
the  word  "  graft "  is  new,  the  thing  itself  is 
vastly  otherwise.  There  has  never  been  a 
time  when  the  mass  of  the  people  have  not 
been  honest,  but  neither  has  there  been  any 
time  when  the  couhtry  was  free  from  rogues. 
To  state  the  indisputable  fact  that  the  abuses 
and  scandals  unearthed  in  the  past  few  years 
have  differed  only  in  degree,  and  sometimes 
not  even  in  that,  from  others  that  have  come 
to  light  at  all  periods  of  our  history,  is  not  to 
counsel  pessimism.  It  is  in  no  sense  equiva- 
lent to  saying  that  graft  is  a  necessary  evil 
or  inseparable  from  business  or  political  life. 
The  real  harm  would  be  done  by  the  false 
impression  that  it  is  a  new  phenomenon  to 
which  public  attention  has  been  lately  so 
much  directed.  The  notion,  "that  our  po- 
32 


GRAFT  AMONG  THE  FATHERS  33 

litical  and  business  evils  cannot  be  grappled 
with  successfully,  not  because  they  are  in 
themselves  too  great,  but  because  the  moral 
fibre  of  the  people  has  deteriorated"  is,  as 
George  W.  Alger  puts  it  in  his  much  dis- 
cussed essay  on  the  Literature  of  Exposure, 
"a  heresy  more  dangerous,  if  adopted,  than 
all  the  national  perils  which  confront  us  to- 
day combined." 

After  all  is  said  and  done  it  was  not  a 
twentieth  century  trust  magnate  who  said, 
"  Every  man  has  his  price,"  but  an  eighteenth 
century  English  prime  minister.  Whichever 
of  our  public  evils  be  taken  as  a  type  the 
same  condition  exists.  The  student  who  in- 
vestigates with  real  thoroughness  finds  the 
roots  of  contemporary  abuses,  and  sometimes 
more  than  the  roots,  in  the  years  of  our 
boasted  simplicity  and  virtue.  "Who  can 
doubt "  sings  Kipling: 

"  Who  can  doubt  the  secret  hid 
Under  Cheops'  pyramid 
Was  that  the  contractor  did 

Cheops  out  of  several  millions  ? 
Or  that  Joseph's  sudden  rise 
To  comptroller  of  supplies 
Was  a  fraud  of  monstrous  size 

On  King  Pharaoh's  swart  civilians?" 

Now  to  bring  the  text  home. 


34  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

"Jay,"  said  Ex-Senator  Gouverneur  Morris 
to  John  Jay  who,  after  presiding  over  the 
Continental  Congress  and  serving,  in  Jeffer- 
son's absence,  as  this  country's  first  secretary 
of  state,  had  become  chief  justice,  "  what  a 
set  of  d d  scoundrels  we  had  in  that  sec- 
ond Congress." 

"  Yes  "  assented  the  chief  justice,  "  that  we 
had." 

George  Pellew,  who  narrates  this  incident 
in  his  life  of  Jay  comments  upon  it  by  say- 
ing :  "  Congress  in  those  early  days,  as 
pictured  in  the  private  correspondence  of  the 
French  agents  and  ministers,  does  not  alto- 
gether resemble  that  Amphictyonic  Council 
of  honourable,  unselfish  patriots  into  which  it 
has  become  transfigured  by  the  magic  conse- 
cration of  time." 

The  late  Senator  Hoar  of  Massachusetts, 
an  antiquarian  of  parts,  a  close  student  of 
history  all  his  life,  and  of  longer  actual  partic- 
ipation in  public  affairs  than  all  but  a  very  few 
of  his  Senate  colleagues,  in  his  "  Autobiog- 
raphy of  Seventy  Years,"  speaks  of  telling 
General  Garfield,  after  the  Belknap  impeach- 
ment trial  in  1877,  **  that  I  had  been  looking 
into  the  history  of  the  first  sixteen  years  of 
the  government,  which  included  the  adminis- 
trations of  Washington  and  John  Adams  and 


GRAFT  AMONG  THE  FATHERS  35 

the  first  term  of  Jefferson,  and  that  in  my 
opinion  there  was  not  only  more  corruption 
in  proportion  then  than  there  had  been  under 
Grant,  but  there  had  been  more  in  amount, 
notwithstanding  the  difference  in  popula- 
tion." 

Before  the  advent  of  the  modern  news- 
paper and  the  ten-cent  magazine,  detailed 
stories  of  official  wrong-doing  were  not  put 
before  the  public,  it  is  true,  in  quite  the  same 
form  as  at  present.  It  is  rather  in  the  diaries 
and  letters  of  the  time  that  light  on  this  sub- 
ject must  be  sought.  They  give  it  abun- 
dantly enough.  "  Public  virtue,"  wrote  Philip 
Hone,  ex-mayor  of  New  York,  in  1843,  "  is 
the  only  foundation  of  a  republican  form  of 
government,  and  that  is  utterly  swept  away." 

He  seems  to  have  regarded  crooked 
political  methods  as  inventions  of  the  thirties, 
his  own  term  of  office  having  ended  in  1827. 
The  effort  more  recently  has  been  to  establish 
their  genesis  in  the  eighties  or  nineties,  with 
occasional  remote  allusions  to  the  seventies. 
But  the  parallelism  is  close  in  many  ways. 
Compare,  for  example,  the  comments  upon 
the  postal  scandals  of  1903  or  the  insurance  rev- 
elations of  1905  with  this  citation  from  Mr. 
Hone's  diary,  November  6,  1838,  some  sixty- 
five  years  earlier. 


36  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

"  The  city  has  been  agitated  to-day  by  re- 
ports of  a  defalcation  in  the  accounts  of  the 
late  collector  of  the  Port,  Samuel  Swartwout, 
to  the  amount  of  a  million  and  a  quarter  of 
dollars.  He  has  taken  the  public  money  and 
engaged  with  it  in  wild  speculations  of  Texas 
lands,  gold  mines  and  other  humbugs,  which 
have  caused  ruin  for  several  years  past  to  men 
of  more  means  and  greater  judgment  than 
Mr.  Swartwout.  How  it  was  possible  that  so 
enormous  a  deficiency  should  never  have 
been  discovered  until  now  is  perfectly  incon- 
ceivable. It  is  a  dreadful  commentary  upon 
the  manner  of  conducting  business  at  Wash- 
ington, and  it  would  appear  impossible  that 
there  should  not  have  been  connivance  on  the 
part  of  some  of  the  coordinate  branches  of  the 
government  either  here  or  there." 

In  proportion  to  the  amount  of  money 
handled  at  the  New  York  Custom  House, 
Swartwout's  defalcation  of  $1,250,000  would 
be  the  equivalent  of  twenty-five  millions  to- 
day. 

There  exists  a  sort  of  tradition  in  New 
York  City  that  Tammany  Hall  became  a  bad 
influence  in  politics  only  in  the  days  of  Tweed. 
Democrats  in  arms  against  the  organization 
have  often  boasted  of  their  membership  in  it 
years  ago  when  that  was  "  an  honour."     But 


GRAFT  AMONG  THE  FATHERS  37 

the  original  sources  of  city  history  which 
were  examined  by  Gustavus  Myers  in  the 
preparation  of  his  history  of  Tammany  Hall 
led  him  to  conclude  that  "  Tammany  has 
been  from  the  beginning  an  evil  force  in 
politics.  Its  characteristics  were  formed  by 
its  first  great  leader,  Aaron  Burr,  and  his  chief 
lieutenant,  Matthew  L.  Davis ;  and  whatever 
is  distinctive  of  Tammany  methods  and 
policies  in  1900  is,  for  the  most  part,  the  de- 
velopment of  features  initiated  by  these  two 
men  one  hundred  years  ago." 

Professor  Jesse  Macy  in  his  book  on 
"  Political  Parties  in  the  United  States,"  says 
of  the  generation  before  the  civil  war,  that, 
"  hardly  a  man  could  have  been  found  who 
felt  himself  too  virtuous  to  *  go  into  politics.' 
The  sensitively  moral  were  not  repelled  by 
political  methods  which  to-day  are  re- 
garded as  disgraceful.  As  the  higher  political 
morality  becomes  more  pervasive  it  will  be 
difficult  to  judge  the  earlier  age  fairly.  It  is 
easy  to  forget  that,  from  the  very  nature  of 
moral  progress,  it  often  happens  that  intelli- 
gent and  moral  leaders  of  one  generation  will, 
in  all  good  conscience,  say  and  do  things 
which  only  the  conscious  hypocrite  or  the 
knave  of  a  later  generation  can  do." 

Manasseh     Cutler    was    graduated    from 


38  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

Yale  College  in  1769,  was  an  ordained 
minister  and  an  army  chaplain  in  the  Revolu- 
tion. He  was  twice  elected  to  Congress 
after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  and 
President  Washington  offered  to  make  him 
a  judge.  But  besides  these  remembered 
distinctions,  Mr.  Cuder  represented  one  of 
the  large  interests  that  came  to  Congress 
seeking  legislation  before  the  word  "lobby- 
ist" was  invented.  This  was  the  Ohio 
Company  of  Associates.  The  company 
wanted  large  and  valuable  land  grants  in 
return  for  its  work  in  settling  and  improving 
the  lands  of  the  Northwest  Territory.  Its 
initial  difficulty  in  securing  the  desired 
legislation  was  that  the  members  from 
several  of  the  States  did  not  remain  at  all 
regularly  at  the  capital — then  New  York. 
Since  the  States  voted  as  units  in  the  Con- 
tinental Congress  the  non-representation  of 
the  smaller  States  effectually  blocked  the 
pending  bills. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Cutler  first  sent  a  trusted 
agent  to  Maryland  to  persuade  the  mem- 
bers of  Congress  to  come  to  New  York, 
while  he  himself  planned  a  trip  to  Rhode 
Island  and  Connecticut  "  to  solicit  members 
from  these  States  to  go  on  to  New  York  and 
to  lay  an  anchor  to  windward  with  them." 


GRAFT  AMONG  THE  FATHERS  39 

How  he  was  to  "  lay  that  anchor  "  appeared 
presently.  At  this  time — 1787 — Arthur  St. 
Clair  of  Pennsylvania  was  president  of  the 
Continental  Congress.  There  was  to  be  a 
Governor  appointed  for  the  new  territory 
"  northwest  of  the  river  Ohio,"  and  General 
St.  Clair  wanted  the  office.  Accordingly 
the  sagacious  Mr.  Cutler  became  a  strong 
partisan  of  his  candidacy.  We  find  him 
writing  in  his  diary,  "  Several  members  told 
me  that  our  matters  went  on  much  better 
since  St.  Clair  and  his  friends  had  been  in- 
formed that  we  had  given  up  Parsons  (the 
other  candidate)."  The  clerical  politician 
learned  by  practice  how  to  look  after  his 
company's  interests.  "We  have  now,"  he 
wrote,  "entered  into  the  true  spirit  of  negotia- 
tion with  great  bodies.  Every  machinery 
in  the  city  that  it  was  possible  to  get  to  work 
was  now  put  in  motion."  General  St.  Clair 
secured  the  appointment  as  Governor  and  it 
was  he  who  named  the  present  city  of 
Cincinnati.  And  Mr.  Cutler,  on  July  27, 1787, 
wrote  triumphantly, "  By  this  ordinance  we  ob- 
tained the  grant  of  near  five  millions  of  acres 
of  land,  amounting  to  three  millions  and  a 
half  of  dollars,  one  million  and  a  half  of  acres 
for  the  Ohio  Company,  and  the  remainder 
for  a  private  speculation  in  which  many  of 


40  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

the  principal  characters  of  America  are  con- 
cerned. Without  connecting  this  specula- 
tion similar  terms  and  advantages  could  not 
have  been  obtained  for  the  Ohio  Company." 

Some  agents  of  modem  trusts  and  cor- 
porations may  know  a  Uttle  more  about  "  the 
true  spirit  of  negotiation"  but  most  of  the 
art  of  "putting  through  legislation"  was 
pretty  well  mastered  and  practiced  within 
five  years  after  the  last  shot  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. 

Members  of  the  early  Congresses  were 
actually  in  the  pay  of  France.  It  is  un- 
thinkable to-day  that  the  most  unscrupulous 
congressman  could  be  guilty  of  such  deal- 
ings. Certainly,  "  pessimism  in  regard  to 
political  conditions  gains  no  support  from 
real  research." 

But  what  is  true  of  political  corruption  also 
applies  to  financial.  "  How  modern  all  this 
sounds,"  writes  Burton  J.  Hendrick  of  the 
questionable  practices  discovered  in  the  con- 
duct of  an  insurance  company  formed  long 
before  the  war.  Mr.  Hendrick,  who  has  writ- 
ten for  McClure's  Magazine  the  most  ex- 
haustive and  careful  series  of  articles  on  the 
history  of  insurance  that  have  ever  been  pre- 
pared for  the  inexpert  reader,  finds  the  scan- 
dals of  1905  in  the  great  New  York  com- 


GRAFT  AMONG  THE  FATHERS  4 1 

panics  to  be  merely  the  application  on  a 
tremendous  scale  of  deceptions  and  abuses 
practiced  years  ago  in  this  country  and  long 
before  that  in  England.  Elizur  Wright,  the 
father  of  the  good  sort  of  American  life 
insurance,  visited  England  in  1844. 

"A  few  years  after  Wright's  visit,"  says 
Mr,  Hendrick,  "seventy-eight  life  insurance 
companies  scandalously  wound  up.  Needy 
aristocrats  constantly  sold  their  names  for 
this  purpose ;  the  favourite  device  of  the 
bankrupt  nobility,  indeed,  was  the  organiza- 
tion of  life  companies.  They  fitted  up  elab- 
orate offices ;  issued  high-sounding  prospec- 
tuses ;  impressed  defunct  schoolmasters  and 
clergymen  in  as  canvassers ;  and  for  a  brief 
time  did  a  flourishing  business.  They  paid 
what  were  then  enormous  commissions — 
thirty-five  and  forty  per  cent. ;  regularly  ab- 
stracted fifty  per  cent,  of  the  premium  in 
'expenses'  and  thus  soon,  in  spite  of  fre- 
quently large  receipts,  found  themselves  un- 
able to  pay  their  policy  claims.  At  the  time 
of  Wright's  visit  the  public  conscience  was 
aroused.  Dickens  had  recently  satirized  the 
business  in  *  Martin  Chuzzlewit '  and  Parlia- 
ment had  held  a  futile  investigation." 

Of  Wright's  work  in  this  country  both  as 
insurance  commissioner  of  Massachusetts  and 


42  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

as  a  private  citizen  out  of  office,  Mr.  Hen- 
drick  again  says : 

"His  strictures  on  the  Mutual  and  the 
Equitable  read  almost  as  though  written 
yesterday.  And  it  is  not  until  we  study  his 
twenty-five  years'  campaign  that  we  realize 
how  long-seated  are  the  present  evils ;  how 
frequently  they,  and  even  the  very  men  re- 
cently in  control,  have  been  exposed;  how 
really  short-lived  the  public  memory  is  and 
how  great  the  danger  that,  because  of  this 
national  forgetfulness,  the  present  upheaval 
may  not  end  in  lasting  reform." 

The  opinions  here  quoted  from  men  whose 
researches  have  especially  qualified  them  to 
pass  judgment  on  what  may  be  called  com- 
parative public  morality  help  to  define  this 
country's  dangers  as  they  actually  are.  They 
show  the  utter  futility  of  the  advisers  who 
would  have  us  fight  the  corruptionist  as  we 
would  fight  the  burglar  who  attempts  en- 
trance once  in  a  long  time  and  can  be  defi- 
nitely ejected  when  caught,  with  little  danger 
of  his  ever  coming  back.  Two  well-dressed 
and  educated  New  Yorkers  once  offered  for 
newspaper  publication  the  details  of  a  plan 
whereby  if  two  hundred  men  or  thereabout 
would  give  two  hours'  work  a  week,  "  Tam- 
many Hall  would  be  absolutely  annihilated 


GRAFT  AMONG  THE  FATHERS          43 

as  a  political  organization."  Needless  to  say 
the  plan  was  neither  carried  out  nor  its  ob- 
ject attained.  Real  results  have  been  re- 
corded in  various  localities  and  through 
various  methods,  some  of  which  are  to  be 
described  in  succeeding  chapters.  But  these 
have  always  been  with  the  full  appreciation 
of  the  antiquity  of  the  evils  to  be  combatted, 
as  well  as  their  everlasting  power  of  recuper- 
ation. 


Ill 

ROOSEVELT  THE  INSPIRATION 

THERE  is  a  passage  in  Gilbert  K. 
Chesterton's  essay  on  Alfred  the 
Great  which  the  American  reader 
may  sometimes  be  tempted  to  apply  to  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt.  "  Alfred  may  not  have  done 
one  of  the  things  which  are  reported  of  him," 
says  the  essayist,  "but  it  is  immeasurably 
easier  to  do  every  one  of  those  things  than 
to  be  the  man  of  whom  such  things  are  re- 
ported falsely.  .  .  .  If  we  read  of  a  man 
who  could  make  green  grass  red  and  turn 
the  sun  into  the  moon,  we  may  not  believe 
these  particular  details  about  him,  but  we 
learn  something  infinitely  more  important 
than  such  trivialities,  the  fact  that  men  could 
look  into  his  face  and  believe  it  possible." 

President  Roosevelt  is  the  most  written- 
about  and  the  most  talked-about  American 
to-day,  not  only  here  but  throughout  the 
civilized  world.  Men  who  have  honestly 
tried  with  abundant  opportunities  to  tell  the 
44 


ROOSEVELT  THE  INSPIRATION  45 

truth  about  him  have  arrived  at  the  most 
wildly  differing  estimates.  He  is  ranked 
with  Washington  and  Lincoln ;  he  is  also 
ranked  with  James  K.  Polk  and  Franklin 
Pierce.  The  late  Carl  Schurz  declared  that 
there  were  two  Roosevelts,  "the  ideal,  the 
legendary  Roosevelt,  as  he  once  appeared  to 
be  and  as  many  people  imagine  him  still  to 
be,  and  the  real  Roosevelt  as  he  has  since  de- 
veloped." Roosevelt's  admirers  can  hardly 
quote  one  of  his  inspiring  maxims  which  his 
critics  do  not  allege  that  he  himself  has 
violated. 

But  eliminate  all  matter  in  controversy, 
subtract  everything  that  has  to  do  with  mo- 
tives or  immediate  accomplishments,  and 
there  still  remains  in  one  way  the  most  inter- 
esting aspect  of  Theodore  Roosevelt.  For 
whatever  the  man  may  be  or  may  not  be  in 
war  and  in  peace,  there  is  no  difference  of 
opinion  whatever  regarding  his  greatness,  to 
use  the  catch-phrase,  "  in  the  hearts  of  his 
countrymen."  The  whole  sum  of  what  he 
himself  has  accomplished  could  not  possibly 
balance  what  he  has  inspired  others  to  ac- 
complish. He  has  made  himself,  as  one  of 
his  severest  critics  styled  him,  "  the  greatest 
force  for  good  in  this  country,"  not  so  much 
by  specific  official  acts  as  by  the  sheer  force 


46  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

of  his  personality.  Roosevelt,  living,  pres- 
ent, not  even  old,  and  in  the  very  midst  of 
partisan  conflict,  is  already  surrounded  by 
much  of  the  association,  the  legend,  one  might 
almost  say  the  magic,  that  belongs  to  na- 
tional heroes  like  William  Tell  or  King 
Alfred. 

The  San  Juan  hill  controversy  illustrates 
this  perfectly.  San  Juan  hill  is  a  perfectly 
well-defined  eminence,  near  Santiago,  one  of 
the  hills  held  by  the  Spaniards  and  captured 
from  them  on  the  eventful  first  day  of  July, 
1898.  Roosevelt  never  claimed  to  have  led 
the  charge  up  San  Juan  hill.  He  never 
claimed  to  have  participated  at  all  in  the 
capture  of  the  famous  block-house.  On  the 
other  hand  no  one  ever  disputed  that  he  and 
his  rough  riders  did  charge  most  valiantly  up 
Kettle  hill,  the  neighbouring  height.  He 
himself  told  what  happened  in  his  book  "  The 
Rough  Riders,"  where  he  wrote :  "  The  Ninth 
Regiment  was  immediately  in  front  of  me  and 
the  First  on  my  left,  and  these  went  up  Ket- 
tle hill  with  my  regiment.  .  .  .  We  had 
a  splendid  view  of  the  charge  on  the  San  Juan 
block-house  on  our  left.  ...  At  last  we 
could  see  the  Spaniards  running  from  the  rifle- 
pits  as  the  Americans  came  on  their  final  rush. 
.     .     .     Long  before  we  got  near  them  the 


ROOSEVELT  THE  INSPIRATION  47 

Spaniards  ran,  save  a  few  here  and  there  who 
either  surrendered  or  were  shot  down." 

Yet  hundreds  of  columns  have  undoubtedly 
been  devoted  to  the  subject  of  his  mythical 
San  Juan  charge.  It  has  got  into  school  his- 
tories ;  it  has  inspired  poems  and  orations. 
The  real  Roosevelt's  achievement,  altogether 
honourable  and  intrepid  and  inspiring,  is  set 
down  in  official  records  which  nobody  ever 
reads,  while  the  legendary  Roosevelt  is  alter- 
nately apotheosized  for  particular  exploits 
which  he  never  performed,  and  savagely  at- 
tacked for  false  pretensions  of  which  he  was 
never  guilty.  And  what  happened  in  regard 
to  one  point  of  his  war  record  has  been  dupli- 
cated on  untold  occasions  in  connection  with 
his  peaceful  activities. 

"  Why,"  as  a  disgruntled  congressman  once 
voiced  the  question  of  many,  "  is  Roosevelt 
immune  to  the  ordinary  forms  of  political 
retribution  ?  He  has  done  things  that  would 
have  meant  political  suicide  to  any  other  man 
who  ever  held  office,  and  I  haven't  been  able 
to  detect  the  slightest  diminution  in  his  popu- 
larity." That  invulnerability  at  which  both 
his  friends  and  enemies  have  so  marvelled  is 
not  explainable  at  all  except  in  the  light  of 
this  peculiar  glamour.  Alone  among  our 
public  men  he  seems  to  have  passed  the  stage 


48  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

where  his  every  act  is  analyzed  and  criticised 
by  all  his  countrymen  in  judgment.  He  has 
not  felt  the  proverbial  ingratitude  of  repub- 
lics. 

People  believe  everything  of  him,  hope 
everything  from  him.  A  fortnight  or  so  after 
the  culmination  of  the  Chicago  meat-packing 
scandals,  the  grocers  of  England  met  in  their 
general  association.  They  were  naturally 
anxious  to  know  what  they  could  expect  re- 
garding the  quality  of  future  American  ship- 
ments. So  they  cabled  to  President  Roose- 
velt about  it,  and  he  very  promptly  cabled 
back,  through  our  ambassador  that,  "  We  can 
and  will  guarantee  the  fitness  in  all  respects 
of  tinned  meats  bearing  the  government 
stamp.  If  any  trouble  arises  therefrom  pro- 
test can  be  made  not  merely  to  the  sellers  of 
the  goods  but  to  the  United  States  govern- 
ment itself." 

It  all  seemed  very  simple  and  very  natural, 
yet  it  is  hard  to  imagine  the  same  corre- 
spondence taking  place  with  King  Edward  or 
the  Emperor  William  or  President  Fallieres 
or  the  head  of  any  other  nation.  Not  only 
that,  but  it  would  have  been  much  less  likely 
to  have  occurred  with  any  of  our  former 
presidents,  Harrison,  or  Cleveland,  or  Mc- 
Kinley,   for    instance.      President    Fallieres 


ROOSEVELT  THE  INSPIRATION  49 

himself  has  said  that  Roosevelt  is  known  to- 
day to  every  peasant  in  France,  while  the 
London  Spectator  called  him  *'  one  of  the 
most  popular  figures  in  the  English  speaking 
world." 

In  one  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  own  books,  "  The 
Strenuous  Life,"  he  speaks  of  his  personal 
experience  in  finding  friends  among  all  classes 
of  people.  ''Outside  of  college  boys  and 
politicians,"  he  says,  "my  first  intimate  as- 
sociates were  ranchmen,  cow-punchers,  and 
game-hunters,  and  I  speedily  became  con- 
vinced that  there  were  no  other  men  in  the 
country  who  were  their  equals.  Then  I  was 
thrown  much  with  farmers,  and  I  made  up 
my  mind  it  was  the  farmer  on  whom  the  foun- 
dations of  the  commonwealth  really  rested — 
that  the  farmer  was  the  archetypical  good 
American.  Then  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  rail- 
road men,  and  after  quite  an  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  them,  I  grew  to  feel  that, 
especially  in  their  higher  ranks,  they  typified 
the  very  qualities  of  courage,  self-reliance, 
self-command,  hardihood,  capacity  for  work, 
power  of  initiative  and  power  of  obedience, 
which  we  like  most  to  associate  with  the 
American  name.  Then  I  happened  to  have 
dealings  with  certain  carpenters'  unions,  and 
grew  to  have  great  respect  for  the  carpenter, 


50  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

for  the  mechanic  type.  By  this  time  it  dawned 
upon  me  that  they  were  all  pretty  good  fel- 
lows, and  that  my  championship  of  each  set 
in  succession  above  all  other  sets  had  sprung 
largely  from  the  fact  that  I  was  very  familiar 
with  the  set  I  championed  and  less  familiar 
with  the  remainder.  In  other  words,  I  had 
grown  into  sympathy  with  and  understanding 
of,  group  after  group,  with  the  effect  that  I 
invariably  found  that  they  and  I  had  common 
purposes  and  a  common  standpoint.  We 
differed  among  ourselves,  not  because  we  had 
different  occupations  or  the  same  occupation, 
but  because  of  our  ways  of  looking  at  life." 

The  converse  could  be  written  with  just  the 
same  detail.  There  could  be  quoted  almost 
ad  infinitum  cases  like  that  of  the  coachman 
who  advertised  for  a  position  with  a  family 
of  "  sturdy  Roosevelt  type,"  or  the  woman 
member  of  Dowie's  flock  at  Zion  City  who 
said  feelingly  to  a  visitor  who  spoke  of  the 
president,  "  He  would  have  made  a  grand 
apostle  if  he  had  only  been  called."  But  better 
evidence  is  to  be  found  in  the  way  in  which 
Roosevelt's  words  weave  themselves  into  the 
speech  of  the  people.  It  is  understatement 
to  say  that  half  of  the  current  political  phrases 
originated  with  him  or  were  popularized  by 
him.     "  The  Criminal  Rich  "  came  from  him 


ROOSEVELT  THE  INSPIRATION  51 

in  his  first  term  in  the  New  York  Assembly. 
"  Clean  as  a  Hound's  Tooth,"  "  The  Square 
Deal,"  "The  Door  of  Hope,"  "The  Big 
Stick,"  are  only  examples.  "Strenuous" 
was  a  rare  word  ten  years  ago,  as  rare  as 
"kinetic."  Now,  it  is  overworked  inexcus- 
ably and  the  only  reason  is  that  it  is  Roose- 
velt's word.  The  Man  with  the  Muck  Rake 
remained  for  two  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
years  between  the  covers  of  the  "  Pilgrim's 
Progress,"  alluded  to  by  writers  and  speakers 
no  more  often  than  Mr.  Ill-Favoured  or  Mr. 
Hold-the- World.  Several  journalists  hit 
upon  it  simultaneously  in  its  not  very  exact 
application  to  the  over-zealous  (the  tempta- 
tion is  to  say  over-strenuous)  "  exposers." 
It  made  no  particular  impression.  Roose- 
velt used  it  at  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone 
for  the  new  office  building  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  and  the  next  morning  every- 
body who  talked  politics  was  using  the 
allegory.  Roosevelt  is  undisputed  phrase- 
maker  to  the  nation.  He  is  the  first  of  our 
presidents,  moreover,  to  have  brief  passages 
from  his  writings  during  his  own  term  framed 
and  sold  in  the  shops  like  mottoes  from 
Stevenson  or  Channing. 

An  incident  wliich  illustrates  on  a  small 
scale  the  way  in  which  the  peculiar  feeling  of 


52  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

intimacy  has  been  brought  about  between 
Roosevelt  and  his  constituents  occurred  when 
the  president  decided  that  he  had  time  to  do 
no  more  writing  for  pubUcation  during  his 
term  of  office.  Since  Roosevelt  had  always 
been  a  literary  man  and  had  continued  turn- 
ing out  occasional  magazine  articles  as 
well  or  a  volume  now  and  then  since 
assuming  the  presidency,  the  announcement 
was  one  of  general  news  interest.  It  would 
naturally  be  expected  to  become  known 
either  by  a  statement  at  the  White  House  or 
through  some  of  the  publications  for  which 
he  had  been  writing.  But  the  actual  manner 
in  which  his  decision  was  made  public  was 
much  more  characteristic.  It  was  published 
to  the  country  through  the  little  monthly 
magazine  issued  by  the  students  of  the 
Kansas  City  High  School.  The  juvenile 
editors  wrote  to  ask  whether  the  president 
would  not  be  willing  to  contribute  to  their 
paper,  and  Secretary  Loeb  courteously  re- 
plied for  him  that "  the  president  hereafter  will 
not  write  for  publication  during  his  incum- 
bency of  his  present  office  except  on  mat- 
ters of  public  interest  and  in  an  official  way." 
There  are  many  stories  to  illustrate  Roose- 
velt's impulsive  way  of  passing  over  prece- 
dence and  suddenly  bestowing  his  confidence 


ROOSEVELT  THE  INSPIRATION  53 

in  some  unexpected  place.  He  disposed  of  a 
disputed  federal  judgeship  on  the  strength  of 
a  schoolgirl's  letter.  "  I  like  a  little  girl 
who  has  that  kind  of  faith  in  her  father,"  he 
said,  "and  I  have  a  lot  of  faith  in  a  father 
who  has  that  kind  of  a  little  girl."  That 
may  not  be  an  ideal  way  to  make  erudite 
judges,  though  the  President  in  this  instance 
had  learned  from  other  sources  of  the  candi- 
date's fitness,  but  it  is  almost  an  ideal  way  to 
make  friends.  It  is  in  a  way  the  crowning 
display  of  this  sort  of  sympathy  that 
Roosevelt  was  the  president  to  change  the 
high  sounding  official  title  of  his  residence 
"the  Executive  Mansion"  to  the  homelier 
and  more  intimate  "  White  House." 

Falstaff  called  himself  a  cause  of  wit  in 
other  men.  Roosevelt  is  a  cause  of  activity 
and  enthusiasm.  Not  only  is  his  powerful 
aid  sought  and  given  to  more  concrete  re- 
forms and  deserving  causes  than  any  other 
president  so  much  as  thought  of  embodying  in 
his  messages  but  his  service  as  a  sort  of  gen- 
eral galvanizing  agent  for  all  manner  of  weak 
and  undecided  officials  cannot  be  estimated. 
Senator  Tillman  closing  the  debate  on  the 
rate-bill  expressed  his  belief  that  the  president 
had  yielded  more  than  was  right  and  more 
than  was  necessary  to  the  element  in  the 


54  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

Senate  which  was  anxious  to  weaken  this 
legislation.  "  None  the  less,"  he  added  in  ef- 
fect, "  the  credit  is  due  to  him  that  we  have 
any  rate  bill  at  all."  He  might  have  added 
that  for  a  year  before  Congress  did  make  up 
its  mind  to  accept  the  president's  recommen- 
dation on  this  point,  the  State  authorities  all 
over  the  country  had  been  displaying  en- 
tirely unwonted  activity  in  proceeding  against 
railroad  abuses.  State  railroad  commissions 
created  years  ago  and  generally  inactive 
ever  since  began  to  assume  an  energetic 
character.  The  president  asked  Congress  for 
a  particular  kind  of  rate  law.  That  body 
took  its  own  time  about  responding  and  by 
the  time  it  did,  no  less  than  four  State  Legis- 
latures had  passed  for  the  regulation  of  their 
local  commerce  just  such  laws  as  he  was 
seeking  to  apply  on  a  national  scale.  The 
same  might  be  said  of  the  pure  food  laws 
which  the  States  adopted  almost  everywhere 
before  the  opposition  was  overcome  in  Con- 
gress. 

The  "  muck-rake "  speech  contained  the 
suggestion  of  a  graduated  income  tax  for  the 
elimination  of  excessive  fortunes.  "  That  is 
going  to  make  us  no  end  of  trouble  in  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature,"  complained  a 
rich    Bostonian.      An   incidental,    unofficial 


ROOSEVELT  THE  INSPIRATION  55 

utterance,  not  even  a  concrete  recommenda- 
tion, he  felt  sure,  would  influence  a  distant 
legislature  quite  as  much  as  a  governor's 
message. 

But  most  impressive  of  all  is  the  way  in 
which  his  people  have  looked  to  President 
Roosevelt  for  help  in  all  their  troubles,  quick 
solution  of  all  their  perplexities.  In  the  early 
months  of  1906  a  young  man  named  Tucker 
was  awaiting  execution  at  Boston.  He  had 
been  convicted  of  an  atrocious  murder,  but 
the  conviction  had  been  on  purely  circum- 
stantial evidence  and  many  thousands  of 
persons  in  Massachusetts  came  to  believe 
that  the  youth  was  innocent.  These  re- 
monstrants against  his  execution  finally  ar- 
ranged a  mass  meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall  and 
the  plan  for  saving  Tucker  at  which  they 
finally  arrived  was  simply — appeal  to  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt.  Tucker  was  not  a  federal 
prisoner ;  his  offense  was  purely  against  the 
peace  and  dignity  of  the  commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts.  Properly  speaking,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  had  not  a  particle 
more  to  do  with  the  case  than  the  Shah  of 
Persia.  But  the  appeal  went  to  Washington, 
nevertheless,  carrying  the  tears  and  the  hopes 
of  a  multitude,  and  the  president,  very  prop- 
erly, declined  to  interfere. 


56  AMERICA'S   AWAKENING 

How  many  times  requests  as  far  removed 
as  that  from  the  scope  of  the  president's  con- 
stitutional functions,  his  secretaries  them- 
selves would  hardly  pretend  to  know.  The 
presidential  mail-bag  is  always  the  repository 
of  many  strange  personal  ambitions  and  de-v 
sires,  but  it  has  never  been  so  much  so  as 
during  the  present  incumbency.  A  citizen 
has  written  to  see  if  the  president  cannot  put 
a  stop  to  all  newspaper  sensationalism,  per- 
fectly confident,  apparently  that  Roosevelt 
could  accomplish  this  beneficent  result  if  he 
only  chose.  "I  think  it  would  be  a  good 
thing,"  he  said  in  effect,  "  if  you  would  stop 
the  circulation  of  all  these  lying,  slanderous 
stories  which  are  printed,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  if  you  will  give  this  matter  your  at- 
tention you  will  feel  as  I  do  and  have  them 
stopped."  Another  finds  the  bears  too 
numerous  in  the  National  Park  and  hopes 
the  president  will  set  government  agencies 
to  work  thinning  them  out.  An  old  soldier 
asks  if  the  president  cannot  step  over  to  the 
Pension  Office  and  spend  ten  minutes  look- 
ing over  his  papers  there.  "  I  don't  want 
any  pension,"  he  explains,  "  unless  you  think 
it  is  all  right." 

An  American  woman  whose  son  had  un- 
expectedly enlisted  in  the  British  army  and 


ROOSEVELT  THE   INSPIRATION  57 

was  actually  in  the  field  in  one  of  the  minor 
military  operations  in  Africa,  wrote  to  ask 
if  the  President  would  not  secure  the  youth's 
discharge  and  have  him  shipped  home  at 
once  as  she  needed  him  for  farm  work,  or 
something  of  the  sort.  "  Each  House  (of 
Congress),"  says  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  "shall  be  the  Judge  of  the 
Elections,  Returns  and  Qualifications  of  its 
own  members."  For  all  that,  well  meaning 
citizens  persist  in  writing  to  inform  "  Teddy  " 
that  Senator  So-and-so  or  Congressman  So- 
and-so  is  a  "crook"  and  a  grafter,  and  the 
President  had  better  get  rid  of  him  without 
further  ado.  One  of  the  most  troublesome 
of  the  letter  writers  and  callers  in  person  for 
some  time  was  a  citizen  who  insisted  that  it 
was  the  duty  of  the  President,  without  wait- 
ing for  authority  from  Congress,  an  appro- 
priation, or  even  a  parley  with  the  owners, 
to  take  over  all  the  coal  mines  in  the  country 
and  thus  put  an  immediate  end  to  the  "  dis- 
tress of  the  poor." 

These  are  grotesque  enough.  They  stop 
very  little  short  of  the  fabricated  remark  of 
the  Irishman  whom  the  humorist  repre- 
sented as  expressing  a  fear  that  if  the  Pope 
should    die   "Roosevelt    might    appoint    a 


58  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

Protestant  in  his  place."  And  yet  the  mak- 
ing of  such  utterly  preposterous  requests 
of  an  official  who  has  nothing  to  do  with 
even  the  general  subjects  to  which  they  re- 
late is  in  itself  the  most  staggering  tribute 
to  the  impression  of  power  which  the  man 
himself  has  made.  It  is  not  the  least  but  one 
of  the  greatest  of  Roosevelt's  distinctions 
that  it  is  to  him  all  the  grown-up  children  in 
the  land  stretch  their  hands  when  they  cry 
for  the  moon. 


From  stereograph  copyright,  1906,  hy  Underwood  A  Underwood,  N.  Y. 


ROBERT  MARION  LA  FOLLETTE 

Born,  Primrose,  Wisconsin,  June  14,  1855. 

Graduated  University  of  Wisconsin,  1879. 

Elected  District  Attorney,  Dane  County  as  Republican, 

1880. 
Elected  member  of  Congress,  1884. 
Reelected,  1886  and  1888. 
Practiced  law,  Madison,  Wisconsin. 
Elected  Governor  of  Wisconsin,  1900. 
Reelected,  1902  and  1904. 
Elected  United  States  Senator,  1905. 

"  TTth  fight  must  go  on  or  it  must  die.  It  cannot  stop 
without  dying.  It  is  God's  law  that  those  things  which 
are  to  live  must  grow." 


ii-A  %'.'?i^  ^\ 


IV 

LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT 

IF  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  began 
first,  Robert  Marion  La  FoUette's  work 
for  the  state  of  Wisconsin  deserves  first 
place  among  these  narratives  of  splendid 
service.  It  was  in  Wisconsin,  as  Folk  of 
Missouri  has  expressed  it,  "  where  were  started 
in  large  part  the  fires  which  are  burning  so 
brightly  and  with  so  much  promise  all  over 
the  country,"  La  Follette  is  a  United  States 
senator  now  and  only  fairly  beginning  work 
in  a  new  field,  but  for  twelve  full  years  there 
were  no  important  political  developments  in 
his  state  that  did  not  centre  about  him,  his 
issues  and  his  personality.  Whether  we  look 
at  it  on  the  human  or  the  picturesque  side  or 
attempt  to  analyze  the  particular  platforms 
and  promises  and  performances,  it  is  the  ex- 
traordinarily protracted  character  of  the  fight 
which  first  demands  explanation.  Actuaries 
say  that  one-sixth  of  the  American  electorate 
is  renewed  every  four  years.  If  this  be  true 
then  a  full  half  of  Wisconsin's  voting  popu- 
lation had  changed  between  the  date  when 
59 


6o  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

La  FoUette  first  demanded  attention  for  his 
programme  of  reforms  and  that  when  the  last 
of  these  reforms  was  embodied  in  the  law. 

"  Why  so  long  ?  "  "  Why  so  bitter  ?  "  are 
the  questions  which  outsiders  have  for  years 
been  asking  whenever  a  wandering  Wiscon- 
sin man  began  to  speak  of  the  politics  of  his 
home  state.  The  best  answer  is  that  under 
all  normal  and  reasonable  and  anticipated 
circumstances  such  an  assault  as  La  Follette's 
would  have  been  disposed  of,  once  and  for 
all,  in  its  first  stages.  Looking  back  over 
the  field  the  wonder  is  not  that  it  took  him  so 
long  to  accomplish  his  purposes,  but  that  he 
ever  succeeded  at  all. 

La  Follette  began  his  contest  without  an 
organization,  without  money,  without  social, 
family  or  business  influence  to  help  him.  His 
chief  asset  was — himself.  So,  before  going 
any  further,  it  is  appropriate  to  consider 
briefly  the  man  and  to  pick  out  some  of  the 
elements  of  his  power. 

Some  three  months  after  Mr.  La  Follette 
had  taken  his  oath  as  a  United  States  sena- 
tor, he  delivered  a  speech  on  the  railroad 
rate  bill.  Incidentally,  he  shocked  the  tradi- 
tion that  a  first-term  senator  should  be  seen 
and  not  heard,  by  taking  three  days  to  finish, 
and  he  did  violence  to  another  tradition  of 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT  6 1 

senatorial  courtesy  by  making  reference  to 
the  fact  that  the  chamber  was  nearly  empty 
when  he  began  speaking.  That  three-day 
speech  was  the  longest  delivered  during  the 
exceptionally  exhaustive  Senate  debate  on 
the  bill.  Some  men  who  have  studied  that 
debate  call  it  the  ablest  statement  that  has 
ever  been  made  of  the  arguments  in  favour 
of  government  rate-making.  One  might  dis- 
agree with  Mr.  La  Follette's  conclusions, 
might  consider  him,  as  his  opponents  always 
have,  an  arrant  demagogue,  but  one  could 
not  well  deny  that  he  had  studied  the  ques- 
tion at  issue  longer  and  harder  than  almost 
any  other  member  of  either  House  of  Con- 
gress and  knew  a  great  deal  about  it.  Into 
his  speech  the  Wisconsin  senator  put  the 
results  of  his  twelve  years  of  investigation. 
It  had  this  unique  distinction,  that  it  was  the 
only  long  speech  in  the  Senate  which  dealt 
almost  wholly  with  the  question  whether  the 
government  should  regulate  the  charges  of 
the  railroads  engaged  in  interstate  com- 
merce. Nine-tenths  of  the  Senate  debate  at 
least  was  devoted  to  the  question  whether  it 
could.  Necessarily,  in  the  effort  to  pass  a 
constitutional  bill,  most  of  the  leading  sena- 
tors devoted  their  abilities  to  an  attempt 
virtually  to  anticipate  the  decision  which  the 


62  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

supreme  court  would  render  on  some  future 
test  case.  La  Follette's  speech,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  of  the  kind  that  might  have  been 
delivered  in  the  British  Parliament  or  some 
other  legislative  body  which  possessed  what- 
ever powers  it  chose  to  exercise.  Its  unex- 
pressed corollary  was  that  if  Congress  did 
not  already  possess  the  power  to  have  the 
interstate  railroads  regulated  by  a  commis- 
sion, it  was  high  time  to  secure  that  power 
by  amending  the  constitution.  The  speech 
itself  was  an  exhaustive  handling  of  the 
practical  phases  of  the  railroad  rate  ques- 
tion. It  sought  to  analyze  minutely  the 
various  abuses  which  had  sprung  up  in  the 
absence  of  outside  check  upon  the  rate- 
making  activities  of  the  railroads.  It  was 
fortified  with  tables  and  citations  from  the 
experience  of  existing  rate-making  bodies 
both  here  and  abroad.  It  was,  in  short,  in- 
tended to  be  laid  before  a  small  body  of  wise 
men  specially  trained  in  legislation. 

Yet,  barring  length.  La  Follette  would 
have  delivered  substantially  that  same  speech 
to  the  ordinary  crowd  at  a  Wisconsin  County 
Fair.  And,  what  is  more,  three  thousand 
farmers  would  have  stood  in  the  dust  under 
a  midsummer  sun  and  heard  him  out  to 
the  last  word.     That  is  the  really  remarkable 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT         63 

fact  about  La  Follette  as  a  campaigner  and 
popular  orator.  His  extraordinary  success 
does  not  come  from  "  talking  down  "  to  his 
audiences ;  it  is  rather  from  interesting  them 
in  even  the  heaviest  and  most  abstract  sub- 
ject matter.  He  makes,  it  will  be  quite  safe 
to  say,  the  longest  speeches  of  any  political 
leader  in  this  country.  They  are  as  long  as 
Colonial  sermons.  They  have  for  years  dealt 
with  questions  generally  discussed  exhaust- 
ively only  for  and  by  experts,  they  are 
crammed  with  details  and  neither  inter- 
spersed with  jokes  nor  enlivened  by  anec- 
dotes. If  these  are  demagogic  speeches  it  is 
surely  demagogery  of  a  new  type. 

And  yet  on  this  very  point  there  is  an 
apparent  contradiction.  Some  newspaper 
correspondents  when  La  Follette  came  back 
to  Washington  a  senator  remarked  as  a  sur- 
prising fact  that  he  seemed  a  little  ill  at  ease 
when  attempting  the  "close  range"  unim- 
passioned  style  of  speaking  that  prevails  in 
the  dignified  quiet  of  the  upper  chamber. 
Probably  there  is  an  element  of  truth  in  this 
comment.  La  Follette,  as  has  been  said,  would 
without  hesitation  deliver  a  United  States 
Senate  speech  at  a  county  fair.  But  some 
suggestion  of  the  county  fair  may  still  hang 
about  him  when   he  addresses  the  United 


64  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

States  Senate.  He  is  an  impassioned  and 
fiery  orator  whose  speeches  read  like  the 
proceedings  of  the  Political  Science  Associa- 
tion. The  fact  is  that  he  has  been  simply 
forced  to  develop  a  style  of  speaking  suited 
to  the  work  he  had  to  do.  He  began  his 
political  career  at  outs  with  the  leaders  of 
his  party.  In  his  really  important  fights  the 
greater  part  of  the  Republican  press  of  the 
State  has  been  opposed  to  him.  He  could 
make  his  ideas  prevail  in  only  one  way — by 
creating  the  opportunity  to  address  person- 
ally just  as  many  of  the  State's  half  million 
voters  as  it  was  physically  possible  for  one 
man  to  do. 

In  La  Follette's  college  days  he  wanted  to 
be  an  actor.  That  is  a  fact  which,  if  he  were 
ashamed  of  it — as  he  is  not — his  opponents 
would  never  allow  to  be  forgotten.  He  had 
made  his  name  during  his  senior  year  by 
winning  an  interstate  oratorical  contest  with 
an  oration  on  '*  lago,"  which  was  praised  by 
Edwin  Booth  and  is  still  looked  up  by  under- 
graduates in  training  for  oratorical  competi- 
tions all  through  the  central  west.  He  is  a 
close  student  of  Shakespeare,  and  one  of  his 
Chautauqua  lectures  is  on  the  play  of  Hamlet. 
But  when  he  failed  to  follow  out  that  young 
man's  ambition,  there  was  a  capital  actor  lost. 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT  65 

His  reading  of  Sliakespeare  is  the  treat  of  his 
friends  in  private.  He  still  speaks  with  the 
gestures  and  the  graces  of  the  trained  elocu- 
tionist. Furthermore  it  is  literally  true  that 
more  than  a  third  of  his  important  speeches 
for  the  last  ten  years  have  been  delivered  in 
the  open  air,  not  car-platform  speeches  nor 
perfunctory  greetings,  but  his  most  care- 
fully thought  out  addresses.  Is  it  a  won- 
der if,  after  years  of  this  experience,  he 
does  not  naturally  speak  like  Allison  or 
Morgan? 

La  Follette  has  the  same  phenomenal 
memory  for  names  and  faces  that  James  G. 
Blaine  possessed.  His  natural  tact  and  affa- 
bility, too,  have  not  lacked  for  opportunities 
in  the  "mixing"  of  Middle  Western  politics. 
He  would  have  been  a  friendly  neighbour 
even  if  he  had  never  run  for  office,  and  he 
does  take  a  personal  interest  in  a  great  many 
subjects.  Yet  he  has  the  added  faculty  of 
making  every  visitor  feel  that  his  particular 
business  is  of  vital  interest,  too.  On  Wis- 
consin day  at  the  St.  Louis  fair,  a  recent  grad- 
uate of  the  State  University  who  held  an  in- 
structorship  in  an  eastern  technical  school, 
which  may  be  called  for  the  occasion  "  Pick- 
wick's Institute,"  sought  an  introduction  to 
the  governor.     "  Mr. is  an  instructor 


66  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

in  Pickwick  Institute,"  remarked  the  friend 
who  presented  him. 

"  Pickwick  Institute  I "  exclaimed  La  Fol- 
lette,  with  the  air  of  a  man  who  hears  sud- 
denly the  name  of  an  old  friend.  "  That's 
a  school  with "  There  was  just  a  per- 
ceptible pause  before  the  governor  pronounced 
his  characterization,  "a  very  decided  indi- 
viduality." 

"  Yes,  sir,  we  think  it  is,"  said  the  young 
instructor,  highly  delighted  that  the  governor 
should  have  found  time  in  the  midst  of  mani- 
fold cares  and  distractions  to  note  that  his 
school  had  a  "  decided  individuality." 

So  much  has  been  written  about  La  Fol- 
lette  the  campaigner,  the  advocate — the  agi- 
tator as  the  other  side  would  call  it — that 
other  aspects  of  the  man's  work  have  gone 
unemphasized.  Yet  he  began  his  activity  in 
the  State  field  with  an  almost  ideal  training  for 
the  complicated  work  of  legislation.  He  was 
the  youngest  member  of  Congress  when  he 
defeated  the  sitting  member,  a  Democrat, 
fron>  the  Madison  district  in  1884.  The 
House  of  Representatives  remained  Demo- 
cratic, however,  so  that  he  had  four  years  of 
service  in  the  minority.  His  first  speech  on 
the  floor,  it  is  worth  recalling,  was  an  attack 
upon  the  log-rolling  methods  by  which  the 


LA  FOLLETTE'S   UP-HILL  FIGHT         67 

River  and  Harbour  bill  of  the  year  had  been 
drafted.  He  protested  not  only  against  the 
custom  of  including  undeserving  projects  in 
order  to  gain  votes  for  the  bill  among  the 
members  whose  districts  were  favoured,  but 
against  the  false  economy  which  induced 
Congress  to  disregard  the  recommendations 
of  government  engineers  and  allot  money 
in  mere  driblets,  thus  spending  in  the  end 
much  more  than  prompt  and  adequate  ap- 
propriations would  have  required.  On  both 
these  points  striking  improvements  have,  in 
fact,  been  effected  within  the  last  ten  years. 
The  record  of  that  maiden  speech  further 
shows  that  when  La  FoUette's  time  had  ex- 
pired, Mr.  Cannon  of  Illinois,  now  speaker, 
rose  to  yield  his  own  allowance  of  time  for  the 
young  member  to  conclude. 

In  these  two  Democratic  Congresses,  the 
Forty-ninth  and  Fiftieth,  La  Follette  had  been 
a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Indian  Af- 
fairs, which  is  not  a  committee  of  the  first 
rank,  Knute  Nelson,  now  senator  from  Min- 
nesota, serving  with  him.  In  1888,  however, 
the  Republicans  regained  control  of  the 
House,  and  Thomas  B.  Reed  was  elevated  to 
the  speakership.  With  scores  of  older  and 
more  experienced  men  to  choose  from,  he 
took  La  Follette  for  one  of  the  vacancies  on 


68  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

the  Ways  and  Means  Committee,  always  con- 
ceded primacy  among  all  the  house  commit- 
tees and  doubly  important  at  this  time  be- 
cause a  tariff  bill  was  to  be  framed. 

This  particular  committee  was  certainl)'  an 
extraordinary  body.  La  Follette's  colleagues 
were  William  McKinley,  Jr.,  of  Ohio,  Julius 
C.  Burrows  of  Michigan,  Thomas  M.  Bayne 
of  Pennsylvania,  Nelson  Dingley  of  Maine, 
Joseph  McKenna  of  California,  Sereno  E. 
Payne  of  New  York,  John  H.  Gear  of  Iowa, 
Republicans,  and  John  G.  Carlisle  of  Ken- 
tucky, Roger  Q.  Mills  of  Texas,  Benton  Mc- 
Millin  of  Tennessee,  Clifton  R.  Breckinridge 
of  Arkansas  and  Roswell  P.  Flower  of  New 
York,  Democrats.  McKinley  became  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  McKenna  a  justice 
of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court,  Breckin- 
ridge our  minister  to  Russia.  McKenna  and 
Carlisle  both  held  cabinet  posts,  McKinley, 
La  FoUette,  McMillin  and  Flower  became 
governors  of  their  respective  States,  Burrows, 
La  Follette,  Gear,  Carlisle  and  Mills  were 
chosen  senators,  while  Dingley  and  Payne 
succeeded  to  the  chairmanship  which  carries 
the  ex-officio  "leadership"  of  the  majority 
in  the  House,  and  the  latter  gave  his  name 
to  a  tariff  law  still  to  come.  Mills  had  been 
chairman  in  the  preceding  Democratic  House. 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT         69 

When  La  Follette,  along  with  some  seventy- 
five  other  Republican  members  was  defeated 
for  reelection  in  the  Democratic  "  landslide," 
the  New  York  Sun  characterized  him  as  "  the 
Duroc  to  McKinley's  Napoleon."  It  was  a 
happily  chosen  phrase  for  a  trusted,  efficient 
young  aide.  He  had  drafted  the  schedules 
on  farm  products,  tobacco,  linen  and  silk  and 
was  a  member  of  the  sub-committee  on  the 
iron  and  steel  duties.  It  was  not  at  this  stage 
of  his  career,  that  opponents  began  to  talk 
of  his  lack  of  constructive  ability. 

On  McKinley's  accession  to  the  presidency 
he  at  once  offered  La  Follette  an  appoint- 
ment. Most  of  the  state  leaders  by  that  time 
would  have  been  uncommonly  glad  to  see 
him  quietly  disposed  of  at  a  distance  from 
the  state.  However,  he  refused  it.  The 
proffered  position  was  that  of  comptroller  of 
the  currency.  The  comptroller  is  the  official 
who  has  charge,  under  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury,  of  the  entire  national  banking 
system.  Nowhere  could  the  impractical, 
obstinate,  vain  and  notion-ridden  La  Follette 
have  done  much  more  damage.  Yet  Mc- 
Kinley  evidently  did  not  consider  him 
dangerous. 

In  the  year  1890  La  Follette  was  as  much 
a  national  figure  as  any  able  and  ambitious 


7©  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

third  term  congressman  can  be.  He  now 
ceased  to  be  one  as  completely  as  any  other 
third  term  congressman  who  fails  to  secure  a 
fourth  election.  He  settled  down  in  Madison 
and  began  to  practice  law.  When  he  was 
mentioned  henceforth  in  Washington  cor- 
respondence it  was  in  the  perennial  articles 
on  promising  members  who  had  dropped  out 
of  public  view. 

Yet  the  state  felt  his  presence  more  than 
ever.  Almost  the  first  event  after  his  return 
from  Washington  was  his  sensational  and 
final  break  with  Senator  Philetus  Sawyer, 
the  most  powerful  member  of  his  party,  whom 
La  FoUette  accused  of  attempting  to  bribe 
him.  He  became  known  as  an  opponent  of 
the  powers  that  had  long  ruled  in  Wisconsin. 
At  the  state  convention  in  1894  he  backed  an 
unsuccessful  "anti-machine"  candidate  for 
governor,  Nils  P.  Haugen,  who  had  been 
one  of  his  colleagues  in  Congress.  In  1896, 
the  presidential  year,  he  announced  himself  a 
candidate  for  the  Republican  nomination. 
Coming  to  the  Milwaukee  convention  in  the 
belief  that  he  had  enough  delegates  to  nom- 
inate, he  discovered  that  enough  had  mysteri- 
ously deserted  over-night  to  defeat  him  on 
the  sixth  ballot.  Nobody  was  ever  indicted 
for  bribery,  but  the  belief  that  those  delegates 


LA  FOLLETTE'S   UP-HILL  FIGHT  7 1 

were  influenced  improperly,  to  put  it  mildly, 
has  always  been  general  in  Wisconsin.  The 
direct  primary  suggested  a  way  of  eliminating, 
once  for  all,  the  bribing  or  stampeding  of 
delegates  by  abolishing  the  delegates  them- 
selves and  this  now  became  a  feature  of  La 
Follette's  platform.  His  other  issue  was  that 
the  railroads  had  for  years  been  paying  very 
much  less  than  their  share  of  the  state  taxes. 
On  these  two  reforms  he  went  before  the  Re- 
publican voters  again.  Again  he  came  to 
the  state  convention  with  what  he  believed 
to  be  enough  sure  delegates  to  nominate. 
Again  a  group  of  delegates  deserted,  and  he 
again  failed  of  the  nomination,  this  time  by 
184  votes  out  of  1,067.  Governor  Scofield 
got  the  customary  second  term,  but  the  re- 
forms for  which  La  Follette  stood  seemed  to 
prevail  nevertheless.  That  is  to  say,  both 
Republican  and  Democratic  platforms  con- 
tained planks  favouring  direct  nominations 
and  the  equalization  of  taxation.  Under 
Scofield,  the  Legislature  created  a  tax  com- 
mission which  was  charged  with  the  pre- 
liminary investigation  necessary  before  the 
railroads  could  be  compelled  to  pay  taxes  on 
the  same  basis  as  other  property. 

For  the  fourth  time  in  1900  the  state  fight 
was  renewed.     Senator  Sawyer  had  died  a 


72  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

few  months  before  the  convention  met,  and 
this  time  the  old  "crowd"  capitulated  and 
gave  La  Follette  a  unanimous  nomination 
for  governor.  It  was  not  merely  a  case  of 
making  terms  with  a  man  who  had  beaten 
them.  The  former  opponents  of  La  Follette 
who  voted  for  him  in  1900  believed  that  they 
were  to  receive  the  full  equivalent  of  their 
support.  It  was  the  disappointment  of  their 
expectations  which  started  very  much  of  the 
bitterness  that  was  to  characterize  the  suc- 
ceeding years.  La  Follette  wanted  the  nom- 
ination badly.  The  railroads  wanted  him  to 
"  be  fair."  He  promised  that  he  would  be 
fair.  He  talked  agreeably  to  the  members 
of  the  other  side  in  private  conference;  he 
wrote  letters,  true  politician's  letters,  with 
balanced  phrases  stating  his  determination 
to  deal  equitably  with  all  interests.  They 
were  letters  of  the  kind  which  a  great  many 
public  men  with  excellent  reputations  for 
firmness  use  to  cover  up  their  surrenders. 
Other  men  in  Wisconsin  had  made  promises 
similarly  phrased  and  refrained  thereafter 
from  doing  anything  at  all  antagonistic  to 
the  railroads.  In  fact  the  boast  of  the  public 
service  corporations  that  for  sixteen  years  no 
hostile  legislation  had  become  law  in  Wis- 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT  73 

consin  could  not  have  been  made  but  for  files 
of  such  letters.  The  railroads  expected  to 
have  a  complaisant  governor  now. 

Yet,  when  the  state  went  Republican  and 
La  Follette  was  elected,  he  construed  his 
oracular  promises  differently.  He  meant  to 
be  fair,  of  course,  but  no  one  could  seriously 
call  it  fair  to  let  the  railroads  pay  less  than 
their  share  of  taxes.  So  the  new  governor 
set  about  the  execution  of  the  platform 
pledges. 

The  tax  commission  finished  its  investiga- 
tions and  reported  that  if  the  railroads  paid 
taxes  on  the  same  basis  as  other  property, 
instead  of  arbitrarily  fixed  *'  license  fees,"  the 
State  would  collect  some  $800,000  more  per 
year  from  them.  It  also  made  some  minor 
recommendations.  The  Legislature  corrected 
every  inequality  that  was  pointed  out  except 
those  in  favour  of  the  railroad  companies. 
It  would  neither  increase  the  license  fees  nor 
apply  an  ad  valorem  tax.  The  Assembly  did 
pass  a  complete  and  carefully  drawn  primary 
bill  but  the  Senate,  where  one-half  the  mem- 
bers "held  over"  and  La  Follette's  oppo- 
nents were  in  complete  control,  refused  either 
to  pass  that  bill,  to  submit  it  to  a  referendum, 
to  pass  a  bill  embodying  the  same  principles 
but  applying  only  to   minor  offices,   or  to 


74  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

submit  such  a  modified  bill.  It  put  through 
merely  a  bill  of  its  own  which  no  student  of 
primary  reform  has  ever  taken  seriously,  and 
the  governor  vetoed  it.  Thus  the  session 
ended  with  the  desired  legislation  no  nearer 
than  before. 

What  did  occur  was  a  further  break  be- 
tween the  two  factions  of  the  Republican 
party.  The  summer  after  adjournment  fifty- 
nine  members  of  the  Legislature  signed  a 
manifesto  of  what  was  called  the  "  Repub- 
lican League  of  Wisconsin."  "As  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people,"  they  declared,  "  we 
view  with  alarm  the  persistent  effort  to 
strengthen  the  executive  at  the  expense  of 
the  legislative  department  of  the  State. 
.  .  .  Many  unwarrantable  interferences 
with  the  exclusive  powers  of  the  Legisla- 
ture and  attempts  to  coerce  acquiescence 
in  unreasonable  acts  and  unwise  experiments 
at  the  last  session  were  contrary  to  the  wel- 
fare of  the  people  of  Wisconsin  and  created 
bitter  factional  differences  in  the  Republican 
party."  Because  it  opened  headquarters  on 
the  eleventh  floor  of  the  Herman  building  in 
Milwaukee  this  organization  became  known 
as  the  *'  Eleventh  Floor  League."  Now  that 
La  Follette  was  "  in "  it  formed  the  nucleus 
of   the    opposition   within   the    party.     The 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT         75 

Democrats,  be  it  noted,  from  having  echoed 
the  La  Follette  platform  were  now  solidly  in 
opposition. 

The  Republican  opponents  of  the  State 
administration  now  borrowed  from  an  old- 
time  New  York  political  fight  the  term  "  Stal- 
warts" to  apply  to  themselves,  and  began 
calling  the  La  Follette  men  "  Half-Breeds." 
The  latter  tried  hard  to  keep  these  names 
from  sticking,  but  they  stuck,  nevertheless. 
One  of  the  governor's  aides  who  went  over 
all  the  manuscript  of  the  1902  campaign 
book,  took  pains  to  use  his  blue  pencil  on 
every  reference  to  the  "  Stalwart "  movement 
that  had  crept  in,  changing  the  term  gener- 
ally to  "  bolters."  But  the  people  had  taken 
up  the  words,  there  was  no  use  resisting  them 
much  longer  and  in  another  year  they  were 
part  of  the  regular  vocabulary  of  both  sides. 

It  is  no  wonder  at  all  that  the  men  who 
differed  from  La  Follette  within  his  party 
hated  him  beyond  ordinary  political  ani- 
mosities. He  had  proved  unmanageable  to  a 
degree.  His  opponents  complained  that  he 
would  not  "treat"  with  them.  After  the 
first  railroad  tax  bill  was  defeated  and  before 
the  second  came  up,  when  he  was  anxious 
for  an  opportunity  to  reiterate  his  views,  a 
dog  tax  bill  was  sent  to  him  for  approval 


76  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

and  he  used  his  veto  of  that  bill  as  the  occa-' 
sion  for  renewed  insistence  on  his  railroad 
taxes.  "  The  fee  or  tax  proposed,"  he  said, 
"  may  not  be  esteemed  by  the  Legislature  a 
serious  burden  in  itself,  but  it  would  add  to 
burdens  borne  by  a  great  majority  of  the 
people  which  are  already  out  of  all  propor- 
tion to  those  borne  by  others  whose  influence 
would  seem  to  be  more  potent  in  shaping 
legislation. ' '  Then  followed  some  2 ,  500  words 
on  the  tax-dodging  railroads.  When  he 
vetoed  the  patchwork  and  possibly  uncon- 
stitutional primary  bill  he  took  occasion  to 
make  serious  and  sensational  charges  re- 
garding the  methods  used  to  influence  votes 
in  the  Assembly  against  the  original  bill. 
Whether  the  members  of  the  other  side  were 
railroad  hirelings  or  conscientious  men  he 
treated  them  in  a  way  that  antagonized 
them.  He  had  never  received  quarter.  He 
gave  none  now.  The  winning  manner  which 
makes  him  friends  at  close  range  was  not  for 
these  recalcitrants.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
issue  between  the  two  sides  was  too  funda-- 
mental  for  all  the  tact  and  conciliation  in  the 
universe  ever  to  have  patched  up  except  by 
the  surrender  of  one  side  or  the  other. 

Intolerance  of  honest  differences  of  opinion 
has  always  been  one  of  the  chief  allegations 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT         ^^ 

against  La  Follette.  That  he  is  extremely 
positive  in  his  own  beliefs  and  reluctant  to 
accept  another's  point  of  view  is  true.  But 
that  all  his  adherents  are  forced  to  accept  his 
will  in  everything  is  ludicrously  false  even 
on  the  face  of  the  record. 

One  of  La  Follette' s  close  friends  arrived 
in  Madison  during  one  session  of  the  Legis- 
lature when  a  tax  bill,  an  important  measure 
though  not  embodying  any  platform  policy, 
was  being  passed  over  the  governor's  veto 
in  the  Assembly,  where  the  La  Follette  men 
had  a  clear  majority. 

"Why  don't  you  get  them  lined  up  bet- 
ter?" asked  this  friend. 

"Well,"  said  La  Follette,  with  an  expres- 
sion half  humorous  and  half  grim,  "  I  sup- 
pose that's  the  way  they  see  it." 

He  afterwards  supported  to  succeed  him 
as  governor  one  of  the  very  assemblymen 
who  "  saw  it  that  way,"  contrary  to  his  own 
wishes. 

La  Follette's  own  aggressive  and  uncom- 
promising personality  had  now  become  a 
definite  political  issue.  But  there  was  a  new 
issue  on  his  side  likewise.  Up  to  this  time 
we  have  heard  practically  nothing  of  the 
demand  that  railroad  rates  be  fixed  by  the 
State.     His  "  ho*stility  to  the  railroads  "  had 


78  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

consisted  simply  in  the  proposition  that  a 
stretch  of  railroad  track  should  contribute  the 
same  amount  to  the  support  of  the  State  as  a 
mill  or  a  residence  of  the  same  value.  It  is 
doubtful  if  he  ever  delivered  a  speech  on  the 
subject  in  which  he  did  not  stop  to  explain 
that  it  was  quite  as  unjust  to  make  the  rail- 
road pay  more  as  to  let  it  pay  less  than  its 
rightful  share.  The  final  stage  in  La  Fol- 
lette's  railroad  programme  was  not  reached 
until  he  formally  opened  his  campaign  in 
Milwaukee  on  September  30,  1902.  Here 
he  treated  exhaustively  the  evasion  by  the 
public  service  companies  and  insisted  that 
they  must  be  forced  to  pay  their  rightful 
taxes.  "  For  it  should  be  still  remembered," 
he  added,  just  before  closing,  "  that  there  is 
ever  lodged  in  the  hands  of  the  free  and 
independent  citizenship  of  this  common- 
wealth the  final  power  of  self-preservation. 
Let  it  not  be  forgotten  when  it  is  proposed 
to  'take  it  out  of  the  people  b}^  increasing 
their  rates'  that  there  rests  with  the  State 
itself,  secured  to  it  for  all  time  by  that  great 
jurist  Chief  Justice  Ryan  and  his  associates 
Upon  the  supreme  bench  .  .  .  ample  au- 
thority to  fix  railroad  transportation  at  proper 
and  reasonable  rates,  protecting  all  shippers 
and  all  citizens  of  Wisconsin." 


LA  FOLLETTE'S   UP-HILL  FIGHT         79 

La  Follette  received  the  customary  second 
term  as  governor,  and  promptly  followed  up 
the  idea  he  had  thus  expressed  by  a  message 
in  which  he  attempted  to  prove  by  an  ex- 
haustive analysis  that  Wisconsin  railroad 
rates  were  higher  than  those  of  Iowa  and 
Illinois,  which  had  commissions  with  power 
to  regulate  them.  This  control  he  declared 
a  "  necessary  accompaniment "  of  the  tax 
law,  for  if  the  railroads  could  assess  their 
own  taxes  on  the  people  the  old  burden 
would  be  as  grievous  as  ever.  So  the  rate- 
commission  question  became  the  storm  centre. 
The  "Stalwart"  Senate  passed  the  ad  valorem 
tax  bill,  and  even  the  primary  bill  with  the 
provision  that  it  should  not  take  effect  until 
ratified  by  popular  vote  at  the  November 
election  of  1904.  But  the  rate  bill  it  would 
not  accept.  There  were  hearings,  tremen- 
dous delegations  of  shippers  visited  Madison 
to  protest  against  the  proposed  legislation. 
Rate  regulation  was  discussed  exhaustively 
in  pamphlets  and  newspapers  by  both  sides, 
with  complete  inability  to  agree  upon  even 
the  basic  facts  of  the  controversy.  However, 
the  bill  failed,  through  a  Wisconsin  congress 
man,  Henry  A.  Cooper,  introduced  at  Wash- 
ington the  next  winter,  a  similar  bill  which 
was  the  forerunner  of   the  Esch-Townsend 


8o  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

and  Hepburn  bills  and  the  comprehensive 
national  rate  act  of  1906. 

La  Follette  had  now  suffered  five  succes- 
sive distinct  defeats,  one  when  he  supported 
another  candidate,  two  in  seeking  the  nomi- 
nation for  himself,  and  two  in  the  Legislature 
after  he  became  governor.  He  had  secured 
after  ten  years  of  campaigning  the  enactment 
of  one  of  his  original  reforms  lacking  the 
corollary  which  he  considered  indispensable, 
and  the  chance  to  have  the  other  passed  upon 
by  the  people  in  an  election  still  to  come. 
No  governor  of  Wisconsin  had  ever  received 
three  terms  in  succession.  If  La  Follette  had 
stepped  out  at  the  end  of  his  term,  told  his 
constituents  that  he  had  done  as  well  as  he 
knew  how,  and  possibly  accepted  a  federal 
appointment,  it  would  have  been  only  the 
natural,  and  it  would  have  been  called  the 
"  inevitable,"  end  of  his  fight. 

But  instead  the  governor  came  out  as  a 
candidate  for  a  third  term.  He  did  not  pro- 
pose to  retire  from  the  fight,  he  said,  until 
every  one  of  the  cardinal  reforms  which  the 
State  needed  had  been  secured.  If  there  was 
anything  needed  to  enrage  the  "  Stalwarts," 
it  was  this  dogged,  shut-eyed  persistency. 
Both  sides  went  into  the  field  and  all  through 
the  spring  caucuses  and  county  conventions 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT         8 1 

were  being  held  and  the  results  chalked  down 
on  every  politician's  blackboard.  Both  sides 
claimed  a  majority  on  the  day  before  the  con- 
vention met,  but  the  balance  of  power  really 
lay  with  i8o  delegates  whose  seats  were  in 
dispute.  The  contests  were  intricate  in  the 
extreme,  the  printed  briefs  and  records  of  the 
two  sides  filling  more  than  500  printed  pages. 
In  one  instance  a  minor  had  voted  at  a  local 
caucus.  That  caucus  had  been  carried  by  a 
majority  of  one.  The  delegates  so  chosen 
had  gone  to  the  county  convention  and  had 
been  the  means  of  carrying  it  for  La  Follette. 
So  a  considerable  block  of  seats  in  the  State 
convention  was  made  to  depend  on  that  nine- 
teen year  old  boy's  vote.  In  another  case  the 
delegates'  credentials  had  been  improperly 
certified,  and  while  the  State  Committee  was 
deciding  adversely  on  this  ground  a  correctly 
signed  copy  was  in  the  post-office  waiting 
delivery.  La  Follette  in  his  ten  years  of  ad- 
vocacy had  never  put  forward  a  better  argu- 
ment for  the  direct  primary  than  was  furnished 
by  this  very  controversy.  If  he  had  had  his 
way  there  would  have  been  no  State  conven- 
tion at  all. 

The  decision  of  these  contests  by  the  State 
Committee  furnished  the  nominal  excuse  for 
the  Stalwart  delegates  to  withdraw  from  the 


82  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

convention,  hold  one  of  their  own  at  the  local 
Opera  House  and  nominate  a  third  candidate 
for  governor.  The  State  Committee  had  de- 
cided about  half  of  the  contests  each  way,  but 
as  La  Follette  had  more  of  the  uncontested 
delegates  this  gave  the  convention  to  his  par- 
tisans. The  bolt  occurred  because  La  Fol- 
lette was  to  be  renominated.  If  there  had 
not  been  one  pretext  for  it,  another  would 
have  been  found. 

There  were  two  brands  of  Republicans  in 
Wisconsin  now,  and  it  was  all  on  account  of 
La  Follette.  The  division  in  the  State  was 
more  like  a  feud  than  a  friendly  contest  be- 
tween men  holding  the  same  general  political 
faith.  It  actually  happened  in  Madison  if 
not  in  other  places  that  supposedly  intelli- 
gent citizens  of  one  faction  forbade  their  chil- 
dren to  play  with  children  whose  parents  be- 
longed to  the  other  faction.  The  State  capi- 
tol  had  burned  during  the  previous  winter. 
That  fire  became  so  much  of  a  political  issue 
that  the  Republican  State  Committee  had  to 
issue  a  document  explaining  very  gravely,  in 
effect,  that  La  Follette  and  his  henchmen  had 
not  burned  it  down.  The  Republican  Na- 
tional Committee  and  the  Credentials  Com- 
mittee of  the  Republican  National  Convention 
had  decided  that  the  Stalwart  faction  was 


LA  FOLLETTE'S   up-hill  FIGHT         83 

regular,  but  the  prestige  of  this  was  more 
than  counterbalanced  when  the  State  supreme 
court  decided  that  La  Follette  was  entitled  to 
have  his  name  in  the  "  Republican  "  column 
of  the  ballot.  On  the  rendering  of  that  de- 
cision Mr.  S.  A.  Cook,  the  Stalwart  nominee, 
withdrew  from  the  field,  and  the  faction  which 
had  embodied  in  its  platform  a  special  com- 
mendation of  the  **  wise  rule  "  against  third 
terms,  nominated  in  his  place  ex-Governor 
Scofield,  who  had  already  served  two.  Since 
the  Democratic  nominee,  George  W.  Peck, 
for  whom  most  of  the  Stalwarts  really  intended 
to  vote,  was  likewise  seeking  his  third  term, 
the  opposition  to  La  Follette  on  the  "anti 
third  term  "  issue  promptly  disappeared. 

How  many  Stalwarts  there  really  were  at 
the  time  of  the  bolt  can  never  be  definitely 
known.  That  faction  always  claimed  to  in- 
clude a  majority  of  the  Republican  party- 
Only  eleven  thousand  voted  for  the  third 
candidate,  but  it  is  impossible  to  tell  just 
how  far  the  Stalwarts  who  voted  for  the 
Democrat  were  offset  by  the  La  Follette  sup- 
porters among  "fair-minded  Democrats" 
whose  support  the  governor  definitely  asked 
in  this  campaign,  using  a  term  which  he  had 
employed  in  classifying  the  voters  of  his  dis- 
trict, as  far  back  as  his  congressional  days 


84  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

The  returns  indicated  a  net  defection  of  a  lit- 
tle over  fifty  thousand  Republicans.  Sup- 
posing that  there  were  twenty-five  thousand 
of  the  "fair-minded  Democrats,"  the  entire 
Stalwart  strength  might  be  set  down  at  some- 
thing like  eighty-five  thousand.  La  Follette 
votes  numbered  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  thousand. 

But  the  bolting  movement  had  appeared 
formidable  far  beyond  its  numerical  strength. 
It  embraced  not  merely  the  selfish  corpora- 
tion element,  but  most  of  the  men  who  be- 
longed to  the  politics  of  the  older  school,  and 
those  who  were  bound  to  them  by  social  ties, 
personal  ties  or  financial  ties.  It  included  a 
very  large  proportion  of  the  "  best  peo- 
ple "  of  the  state.  The  chairman  of  the  Re- 
publican Congressional  Committee,  and  the 
acting  chairman  of  the  National  Committee, 
both  Wisconsin  men,  belonged  to  it,  as  did 
both  the  United  States  senators.  Its  weak- 
ness was  in  the  rank  and  file  of  the  party.  It 
was  an  army  composed  too  largely  of  gen- 
erals, and  it  could  not  stand  in  the  face  of 
a  real  popular  sentiment. 

The  railroad  rate  law  was  now  to  be  passed. 
It  had  been  defeated  in  1903,  largely  by  means 
of  the  protests  of  shippers  throughout  the 
state  against  government  rate-making.    They 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT         85 

had  written  and  telegraphed  to  their  repre- 
sentatives, and  they  had  come  to  Madison  by 
train-loads  to  appear  against  the  bill  in  per- 
son. The  governor  proposed  to  run  no 
chance  of  that  thing  happening  again.  While 
he  had  lost  on  his  main  issue,  he  had  secured 
an  inconspicuous  law  which  permitted  the 
railroad  commissioner  to  go  over  the  books 
of  the  railroad  companies.  The  commissioner 
now  reported  that  he  had  discovered  the  pay- 
ment of  more  than  four  and  a  half  million 
dollars  of  illegal  rebates  to  favoured  shippers. 
When  the  railroads  had  paid  their  taxes  on 
gross  receipts  these  rebates  had  been  deducted 
beforehand  and  the  railroad  commissioner's 
investigations  were  the  means  of  collecting 
for  the  state  about  half  a  million  dollars  of 
back  taxes.  Where  the  governor  had  ob- 
tained that  lump  sum,  it  was  obvious  that  if 
he  chose  he  could  obtain  and  publish  the  list 
of  individual  rebate-takers  and  the  amount  of 
their  concessions,  too.  His  message  that 
winter  contained  a  perfectly  good-humoured 
passage  devoted  to  the  opposition  which 
might  be  expected  to  manifest  itself  against 
the  rate  bill.  "  If  the  railroads  have  such 
power  over  any  of  the  business  interests  of 
Wisconsin,"  he  said,  "  as  to  bring  them  here 
through  fear  of  jeopardizing  rates  or  accom- 


86  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

modations  to  which  they  are  entitled  in  the 
conduct  of  a  legitimate  business,  then  the 
government  should  at  once  protect  them 
against  any  further  tyranny  over  them  on  the 
part  of  the  transportation  companies.  If  the 
large  shippers  are  here  voluntarily  aiding  the 
railroads  to  maintain  excessive  rates  upon 
the  general  public,  in  order  that  specially  low 
rates  may  be  continued  to  them,  then  the 
state  should  at  once  protect  the  general  pub- 
lic against  being  further  sacrificed  to  the 
greed  of  the  large  shippers."  The  hint  was 
enough.  The  shippers  knew  that  the  gov- 
ernor knew  just  which  ones  among  them  had 
enjoyed  the  "specially  low  rates."  There 
was  no  "  demonstration "  at  Madison  that 
winter. 

Before  the  rate  law  was  actually  passed,  the 
Legislature  chose  La  Follette  to  the  United 
States  Senate.  The  vacancy  was  a  little 
more  than  a  month  distant.  He  accepted, 
but  with  the  proviso  that  "  if  there  should 
appear  any  conflicting  obligation  which 
should  be  impossible  for  me  to  meet  as  United 
States  senator,  although  elected  to  that  posi- 
tion, I  shall  ask  you  to  recede  the  nomination 
from  me  and  place  it  upon  another  man  of 
your  own  choice."  He  did  wait  nearly  a 
year  before  taking  his  seat  at  Washington. 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT  87 

After  the  rate  bill  had  been  on  trial  for  a  rea- 
sonable time  he  called  a  special  session  of  the 
Legislature  for  the  purpose  of  perfecting  the 
workmanship  of  it  and  the  primary  law,  as 
^well  as  to  devise  methods  for  making  the 
railroad  companies  pay  the  taxes  assessed 
upon  them  under  the  new  law.  The  special 
session  over,  he  went  to  Washington  and 
was  sworn  in  for  his  new  position.  It  was  a 
little  less  than  fourteen  years  since  he  had 
last  sat  in  Congress. 

What,  after  all,  did  those  fourteen  years 
of  strife  mean  to  the  State  of  Wisconsin? 
That  question  is  not  answered  by  the  mere 
statement  that  the  aspirants  for  the  succession 
have  had  their  claims  settled  by  the  unequiv- 
ocal vote  of  the  members  of  their  party  and 
could  not  be  affected  by  the  stampeding 
or  manipulation  of  any  State  convention  ;  nor 
that  the  railroad  commission  for  which  La 
Follette  fought  has  settled  scores  of  disputes 
between  railroads  and  shippers  all  over  the 
State,  usually  without  court  proceedings  or 
even  a  formal  order ;  nor  even  that  the  assess- 
ment issued  at  the  time  of  this  writing  sets 
the  railroads'  taxes  at  $642,500  more  than 
they  would  have  been  under  the  old  law. 
The  greater  achievement  has  been  no  less 
real  because  it  cannot  be  stated  concretely. 


88  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

La  Follette's  clean  cut  campaigns  of  issues 
have  been  most  powerful  protests  against 
sordid,  office-broking  politics.  He  brought 
into  public  life  in  Wisconsin  not  only  a  new 
set  of  men,  but  a  new  spirit.  A  newspaper 
correspondent  at  Madison,  one  of  the  bitter-" 
est  and  most  uncompromising  Stalwarts  that 
could  be  imagined  said,  "  I  must  admit  that 
the  La  Follette  members  have  always  been 
the  best  element  in  our  Legislature."  Indeed, 
the  charge  heard  in  the  last  few  years  is  al- 
ways that  the  make-up  of  the  La  Follette 
party  has  changed.  It  is  hardly  denied  by  any 
one  that  it  originally  drew  to  itself  the  ear- 
nest, educated,  clean  young  men  of  the  State 
in  a  way  that  no  other  cause  had  ever  done. 
It  may  very  well  be  true  that  the  grade  of  La 
Follette's  lieutenants  declined.  There  never 
yet  was  a  winning  cause  which  did  not  attract 
to  itself  the  disgruntied  and  dissatisfied  and 
self-seeking  from  all  about.  The  Crusaders 
who  enter  the  citadel  are  not  necessarily  the 
ones  who  have  enlisted  with  the  most  of 
prayer  and  unselfishness. 

But  is  La  Follette  sincere?  That  is  the 
other  question  which  is  everlastingly  asked. 
The  long  record  of  his  persevering  work, 
as  it  is  briefly  recapitulated  here,  contains 
the  answer.     Suppose  that  every  one  of  the 


LA  FOLLETTE'S  UP-HILL  FIGHT         89 

laws  for  which  he  has  contended  are  meretri- 
cious in  principle.  Still,  he  has  let  himself 
be  diverted  by  nothing  from  the  cause  to 
which  he  dedicated  his  efforts.  There  is  no 
moral  doubt  in  the  world  that  at  any  time  up 
to  the  final  stages  of  his  fight  he  could  have 
had  himself  "  taken  care  of "  by  the  wealthiest 
and  most  powerful  interests  in  the  State. 
Yet  he  is  a  poor  man  to-day  and  the  summer 
lectures  which  are  talked  about  by  his  op- 
ponents as  if  he  gave  them  simply  for  the 
love  of  talking,  merely  make  good  what  it 
has  cost  him  to  hold  office.  The  very  faults 
that  are  charged  against  him,  over-confi- 
dence, unwillingness  to  treat  with  an  oppo- 
nent, absolutism,  are  the  last  in  the  world 
to  be  found  combined  with  insincerity. 

There  is  more  to  be  said  of  La  Follette's 
constructive  work  in  another  connection. 
But  one  special  inspiration  is  in  his  story. 
More  than  any  other  public  man  to-day,  he 
teaches  how,  in  Browning's  phrase, 

"...     we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better. " 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN 

WILLIAM  TRAVERS  JEROME  is 
at  once  the  despair  and  the  hope 
of  New  York  City.  His  public 
career  has  shown  this  by  its  alternation  of 
periods  of  manifest  unpopularity  and  general 
harsh  criticism  with  bursts  of  such  complete 
confidence  and  trust  as  only  a  very  few  men 
ever  receive.  Between  crises  his  fellow 
townsmen  spend  a  good  deal  of  their  time 
discussing  Mr.  Jerome's  shortcomings  and 
his  rash  promises  which  may  remain  unful- 
filled. But  when  the  actual  reckoning  comes, 
their  old  support  is  unabated. 

In  the  life  of  every  community  there  are 
always  things  which  "some  one  ought  to 
say."  It  has  been  the  peculiar  distinction  of 
New  York  that,  since  Mr.  Jerome  became 
prominent,  those  wholesome  but  disagreeable 
things  have  been  said.  If  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  a  scene  "typical "  of  New  York  City 
politics,  most  residents  of  that  city,  whether 
in  or  out  of  politics,  would  describe  it  some- 
what as  follows: 

90 


WILLIAM  TRAVERS  JEROME 

Born,  New  York  City,  April  i8,  1859. 

Attended  Amherst  College. 

Graduated  Columbia  Law  School,  1884. 

Practiced  law  New  York  City,  1884-1895. 

Appointed  Assistant  District  Attorney,  1888. 

Associate    Counsel,   Lexow    Investigating   Committee, 

1894. 
Appointed  Justice  Court  of  Special  Sessions,  1895. 
Elected  District  Attorney  New  York  County,  on  Fusion 

ticket,  1 901. 
Reelected  as  Independent,  1905. 

"  Public  opinion  goes  hither  and  yon,  but  in  the  end  it  is 
sweet,  sane  and  sound,  and  like  the  ship  will  make  its 
party 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  9I 

A  campaign  meeting  is  in  progress  some- 
where. It  may  be  a  tremendous  gather- 
ing of  the  well-dressed  in  Carnegie  Hall  or 
Durland's  Riding  Academy,  it  may  be  in  the 
historic  subterranean  auditorium  of  Cooper 
Union,  it  may  be  in  an  up-stairs  hall  in  the 
tenement  districts,  or  in  a  packed  and  smoky 
barracks  somewhere  along  the  water  front. 
At  any  rate,  "spellbinders,"  good  and  bad, 
have  been  following  each  other  on  the  plat- 
form through  the  evening,  and  one  of  them 
is  in  the  middle  of  a  stirring  sentence  when 
suddenly  there  is  a  slight  commotion  at  one 
of  the  entrances.  Some  one  near  by  cries, 
"  Jerome  1"  and  the  next  second  the  whole 
audience  is  on  its  feet  cheering  and  waving. 
The  interrupted  orator  stands  puzzled  and 
provoked  for  a  minute.  Then  he  smiles  and 
succumbs,  his  sentence  never  finished.  The 
chairman  manages  to  slip  in  a  sentence  of  in- 
troduction between  the  outbursts  of  applause, 
and  the  audience  settles  back  again.  Then 
the  man  for  whom  the  people  have  been  wait- 
ing begins  to  speak.  He  does  not  wear  the 
"  frock  coat  of  oratory,"  he  does  not  gesture, 
and  his  hands  are  probably  in  his  pockets. 
But  he  looks  straight  at  his  audience  with  a 
pair  of  wonderfully  cool  and  steady  eyes  be- 
hind his   glasses.     His   words  come  rather 


92  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

slowly,  with  a  sort  of  intensity  that  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  tricks  of  the  platform 
speaker.  As  he  approaches  the  particular 
message  which  he  has  for  that  evening  his 
words  begin  to  come  between  his  teeth,  al- 
most raspingly.  He  is  giving  his  hearers  a 
few  minutes  of  the  plainest  kind  of  talk  on 
some  vital  point  or  other  which  everybody 
else  is  dodging.  And  when  he  has  put  into 
words  something  which  nine  out  of  ten  of  his 
hearers  have  felt  in  their  hearts  but  never 
voiced,  they  respond  with  such  cheers  as  all 
Tammany's  fuglemen  could  not  have  organ- 
ized beforehand. 

Nobody  knew  Jerome's  wonderful  power  as 
a  campaigner  until  he  actually  took  the  stump 
in  his  own  behalf  in  1901.  From  that  time 
down,  he  has  been  performing  the  same 
service  of  doing  the  plain  speaking  for  the 
community.  Sometimes  his  almost  brutal 
outspokenness  may  have  done  harm  ;  but  the 
good  has  been  fifty  fold  greater.  He  dis- 
carded the  conventional  platitudes  in  his  first 
speeches  dealing  with  the  evil  in  the  city 
against  which  he  and  the  Committee  of  Fif- 
teen had  worked  together.  He  told  an 
audience  of  his  "own  social  class "  from  the 
brownstone  districts  that  "  you  are  not  worth 
the  powder  to  blow  you  out  of  existence." 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  93 

He  told  a  meeting  of  up-town  women  anxious 
to  help  the  fusion  cause  "  in  the  name  of  God 
to  keep  above  Fourteenth  Street "  and  con- 
tent themselves  with  helping  to  raise  money 
and  looking  after  the  votes  in  their  own  fam- 
ilies. When  Mayor  Low's  term  drew  near  its 
end  and  his  renomination  seemed  the  inevita- 
ble thing,  Mr.  Jerome  came  out  with  a  state- 
ment declaring  that  no  one  really  wanted 
Low  for  a  second  term,  and  that  another 
movement  headed  by  him  was  doomed  to 
failure — as  in  fact,  it  proved.  Later,  when  he 
had  convicted  Sam  Parks,  a  dishonest  walk- 
ing delegate,  he  went  before  a  union  meeting 
and  told  his  hostile  audience  to  its  face  that 
the  greatest  enemy  of  labour  was  the  leader 
who  called  off  a  strike  for  money,  whether  his 
operations  raised  a  few  men's  wages  or  not. 
When  hardly  another  prominent  lawyer  would 
join  him  publicly,  he  delivered  a  straight 
from  the  shoulder  speech  on  the  degradation 
of  the  courts  which  it  implied  when  judges 
had  to  sue  before  the  bosses  for  their  nomi- 
nations. Yet  he  did  not  hesitate  to  condemn 
the  president  of  the  United  States  when  Mr. 
Roosevelt  had  criticised  the  decision  of  a 
Federal  judge.  Most  of  his  admirers  would 
agree  that  the  district  attorney  talks  too 
much    and    not  always   wisely.     Yet  these 


94  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

things  are  what  make  Jerome  what  he  is — 
the  enemy  and  the  antidote  to  all  that  is 
canting  and  hypocritical  and  mealy-mouthed 
in  politics. 

One  of  the  sensations  of  his  first  campaign 
was  his  charge  that  William  C.  Whitney,  who 
was  openly  supporting  the  Tammany  ticket, 
and  Senator  Piatt,  the  leader  of  the  Repub- 
lican party,  and  as  such  one  of  the  chief  men 
of  the  fusion  movement,  had  been  in  secret 
conference.  "  It  may  be,"  he  said,  "  that  they 
conferred  about  the  parallax  of  Jupiter  or  on 
the  dark  side  of  the  moon,  but  they  didn't. 
Mr.  Whitney  talked,  I  believe,  with  Mr.  Piatt 
about  the  district  attorneyship  of  the  county 
of  New  York."  Later,  he  announced  that  he 
accepted  the  assurance  of  "  a  gentleman  in  a 
position  to  know,"  that  there  had  been  no 
Whitney-Platt  conference  relating  to  politics. 
But  the  day  after  the  charge  it  was,  of  course, 
the  sensation  of  New  York.  Reporters  from 
all  the  newspapers  went  to  Jerome's  head- 
quarters, located  over  an  East  side  saloon,  to 
ask  for  his  authority  and  further  details.  He 
was  not  willing  to  be  quoted,  but  just  as  his 
questioners  were  closing  in  about  him,  the 
telephone  rang  in  the  little  alcove  where  the 
candidate  had  his  desk,  and  Mr.  Jerome  an- 
swered it  himself.     His  first  words  made  it 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  95 

plain  that  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire  was 
one  of  his  most  important  backers,  remon- 
strating with  him  for  the  rashness  of  last 
night's  speech.  Mr.  Jerome  swung  half  way 
around.  "  This  doesn't  go,  boys,"  he  said. 
Then  he  delivered  into  the  instrument  an  im- 
promptu declaration  of  independence.  He 
was  going  to  do  what  he  thought  right  in 
that  campaign,  he  said,  no  matter  whom  he 
had  to  hit.  When  he  had  finished  he  hung 
up  the  receiver.  There  did  not  seem  to  be 
any  reply  for  him  to  wait  for. 

Impulsive,  sensitive  on  a  point  of  honour, 
unwilling  to  be  dictated  to  by  any  one  on 
his  own  or  the  other  side,  Mr.  Jerome  has 
sometimes  exhibited  a  chivalrous  attitude 
towards  his  opponents  that  most  men  would 
consider  nothing  less  than  quixotic.  In  one 
case,  he  was  prosecuting  in  the  City  Court  a 
lawyer  formerly  employed  by  the  street  rail- 
way company  on  the  charge  of  jury  bribing. 
The  judge  asked  for  certain  of  the  company's 
vouchers  relating  to  previous  cases.  "Those 
vouchers  are  destroyed  after  one  year,"  in- 
terposed the  district  attorney.  "That's  the 
Metropolitan  Company's  story,"  suggested 
the  judge,  "but  there's  no  proof  before  the 
court."  "  As  long  as  I  have  practiced,"  re- 
turned Mr.  Jerome,  "  I  have  tried  to  conduct 


96  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

myself  as  a  gentleman.  We  have  the  word 
of  Mr.  Quackenbush  (the  company's  counsel) 
for  what  I  say,  and  Mr.  Quackenbush  is  a 
gentleman.  His  word  should  be  taken." 
And  he  left  the  room,  with  his  assistant, 
saying  the  next  day  that  the  court  in  which 
his  opponent's  word  had  been  doubted  was 
"  no  longer  a  forum  in  which  any  self-respect- 
ing lawyer  could  remain  unless  he  was  com- 
pelled to." 

Most  men  seasoned  in  politics  have  had 
dulled  somewhat  their  natural  sense  of  quick 
resentment  at  adverse  reflections  and  insinu- 
ations. It  has  not  been  so  with  Mr.  Jerome. 
Any  imputation  as  to  his  motives  rouses  him 
as  quickly  as  if  he  were  new  to  the  give-and- 
take  of  politics.  When  he  was  under  criti- 
cism for  failure  to  secure  indictments  in  the 
insurance  cases,  he  exclaimed  with  emphasis 
in  an  after-dinner  speech,  "  It  is  not  because 
there  is  a  grand  jury  that  will  not  indict,  but 
because  there  is  a  district  attorney  who  will 
not  seek  indictments  unless  based  on  proper 
evidence." 

With  his  passion  for  independence  of  ac- 
tion and  speech,  his  gift  of  vigorous  state- 
ment, and  his  personal  sensitiveness,  it  was 
the  logical  culmination  of  Mr.  Jerome's  use- 
fulness that  he  should  defy  the  political  bosses 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  97 

en  masse.  New  York  has  always  been  the 
home  of  a  great  body  of  political  independ- 
ents, but  these  had  hitherto  made  their  in- 
fluence felt  generally  through  the  agency  of 
one  or  the  other  of  the  great  parties.  Both 
the  time  and  the  man  had  now  come  for  a 
trial  of  strength  with  both  these  party  organ- 
izations. 

The  campaign  of  1905  in  New  York  City 
opened  with  a  startling  violation  of  that 
favourite  national  fiction  that  the  office  seeks 
the  man.  On  the  last  day  of  July  Mr.  Jerome 
gave  to  the  newspapers  a  statement  which, 
as  a  practically  unique  document  in  recent 
American  politics,  is  worth  quoting  with  some 
fullness.     These  were  its  main  declarations : 

"  I  desire  to  serve  another  term  as  district 
attorney  of  New  York  County.  I  have  served 
in  this  office  for  three  and  a  half  years  as 
faithfully  as  I  knew  how.  I  believe  I  have 
served  efficiently.  I  believe  I  have  served 
honestly.     .     .     . 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  one  of  the  greatest 
evils  of  the  present  time  is  that  small  groups 
of  men  have — and  not  infrequently  a  single 
man  has — obtained  control  of  the  executive 
machinery  of  party  organization  and  nomi- 
nating conventions  and  stood  between  the 
public  service  and  the  voters.     The  result  is 


98  America's  awakening 

that  one  in  public  office  usually  has  to  choose 
between  a  termination  of  his  public  career  or 
subserviency  to  such  a  man  or  group  of  men. 
The  public  officer  as  a  consequence,  fre- 
quently feels  no  responsibility  to  the  people, 
but  only  to  those  who  can  secure  for  him  a 
return  to  office  or  future  promotion.  .     . 

"  Should  the  people  of  New  York  County 
desire  me  to  serve  them  for  four  years  more 
as  district  attorney  I  shall  gladly  accept  the 
office  at  their  hands.  I  shall  feel  that  my 
obligation  is  to  them  and  I  shall  serve  them 
faithfully  and  as  efficiently  as  my  abilities 
enable  me.  .  .  .  But  I  do  not  propose 
to  remain  in  office  by  the  grace  of  any  man 
or  group  of  men  such  as  I  have  indicated, 
and  I  shall  retire  from  office  only  in  conse- 
quence of  the  mandate  of  the  people.  .  .  . 
Therefore  if  at  the  proper  time  there  are  two 
thousand  electors  in  the  county  of  New  York 
who  desire  to  have  me  run  again  for  the 
office  of  district  attorney  of  the  county,  I 
shall  cause  a  petition  to  be  filed,  nominating 
me  for  election  to  that  office  and  in  this  way 
submit  it  to  the  people  of  the  county  to  say 
whether  or  not  they  desire  me  to  serve  them 
for  another  term  in  the  office  I  now  hold." 

This  statement  did  not  name  names,  though 
its  author  has  never  been  afraid  of  so  doing. 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  99 

But  its  Straight  out  defiance  to  the  Republican 
and  Democratic  "  organizations  "  alike  set  not 
only  New  York  but  the  whole  country  by  the 
ears.  Although  speculation  went  on  up  to  the 
date  of  the  actual  nominations  it  was  very 
soon  clear  that  the  outspoken  district  attorney 
had  cut  himself  off  from  all  chance  of  an  en- 
dorsement by  either  one  of  the  great  parties. 
He  was  left  in  a  position  as  unusual  as  it  was, 
in  the  minds  of  most  "  practical "  men,  unen- 
viable. 

Mr.  Jerome  had  been  elected  in  1901  along 
with  the  other  candidates  of  the  Fusion 
against  Tammany.  He  had  been  the  inspira- 
tion of  that  campaign  but  his  vote  differed  by 
only  a  few  thousand  from  that  of  his  col- 
leagues on  the  ticket.  The  Fusion  of  that 
year  was  made  up  of  the  Republican  party, 
the  Greater  New  York  Democracy,  the 
Citizens  Union,  and  certain  minor  organiza- 
tions. The  Greater  New  York  Democracy 
had  now  dissolved  and  most  of  its  members 
had  returned  to  their  natural  Tammany  affilia- 
tions; the  Republicans  would  certainly  nomi- 
nate a  candidate  of  their  own.  The  Citizens 
Union  alone  had,  months  in  advance,  before 
even  he  had  declared  his  willingness  to  be  a 
candidate  again,  announced  its  intention  to 
support  Jerome.     In  fact,  it  wanted  him  for 


lOO  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

mayor.  But  it  was  not  the  same  Citizens 
Union  that  conducted  the  wonderful  three- 
cornered  campaign  in  1897  and  came  so  near 
to  making  Seth  Low  the  first  mayor  of 
Greater  New  York,  nor  the  organization 
which  had,  as  Alfred  Hodder  said  in  "  A  Fight 
for  the  City,"  *•  through  Mr.  Fulton  Cutting 
forced  Mr.  Jerome's  nomination  on  the 
managers  of  the  Republican  party,"  four 
years  later.  The  Fusion  ticket  had  been 
defeated  in  1903  and  Tammany  had  come 
back  to  power  in  the  city  of  New  York, 
though  Mr.  Jerome,  a  county  ofBcer,  had 
been  chosen  for  a  four  year  term  and  held 
over.  The  Citizens  Union's  recuperative 
powers  were  not  much  in  evidence.  When 
the  campaign  approached,  in  short,  the 
Citizens  Union  signified  to  the  average  New 
Yorker  a  group  of  zealous  and  disinterested 
men  working  in  the  city's  interest,  following 
and  criticising  local  legislation  at  Albany 
and  giving  the  public  frank  and  trustworthy 
information  on  the  records  of  candidates  for 
office,  a  sort  of  political  Brad  street's  rather 
than  the  army  of  militant  citizens  which  it 
once  had  been.  The  county  of  New  York  in- 
cluded thirty-five  assembly  districts,  and  an 
annexed  district  which  are  the  units  of  all 
political  work  and  speculation  in  New  York 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  lOI 

City.  In  about  half  a  dozen  of  these  the 
Citizens  Union  had  active,  well-manned  or- 
ganizations capable  of  taking  up  the  work  of 
the  campaign  at  once  and  systematically. 
In  a  somewhat  larger  number  it  had  no  or- 
ganization at  all.  Between  these  extremes 
there  were  all  gradations  of  efficiency  and  in- 
efficiency. It  is  not  at  all  to  be  wondered 
at  that  the  Union  was  decidedly  stronger  and 
better  organized  on  paper  than  it  was  in 
actual  fact. 

But  questions  of  what  any  particular  man 
or  organization  had  or  had  not  and  who  was 
to  receive  credit  and  titles  were  not  allowed 
to  interfere  with  the  work  of  electing  the 
courageous  prosecutor  whom  the  people 
wanted  and  the  bosses  of  both  parties  had 
conspired  to  retire  to  private  life.  Jerome 
wag  Jerome  ;  he  was  as  little  the  candidate  of 
any  reform  organization  as  of  any  boss. 

Very  shortly  after  he  had  announced  his 
utterly  suicidal  intention  asking  the  district  at- 
torneyship of  his  fellow  citizens  as  an  inde- 
pendent candidate,  there  sprung  into  exist- 
ence as  if  spontaneously,  the  Jerome  Nomi- 
nators, a  group  of  citizens  who  proposed  to 
look  after  the  formalities  connected  with  put- 
ting their  candidate's  name  on  the  official 
ballot. 


I02  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING      • 

Some  legally  constituted  body  had,  under 
the  election  law,  to  nominate  Mr.  Jerome. 
The  Jerome  Nominators  quietly  undertook 
this  function.  The  nucleus  of  the  body  was 
a  group  of  business  men,  personal  friends  of 
the  district  attorney,  who  had  talked  over  the 
preliminaries  at  the  luncheon  table.  The  list 
was  finally  extended  to  include  forty  names, 
representing  different  walks  of  life  in  the 
city,  and  printed  in  alphabetical  order.  A 
simple  square  was  chosen  as  the  Jerome 
emblem  and  blank  forms  headed  by  this 
square  were  sent  broadcast  through  the  city, 
with  the  announcement  that  in  case  would-be 
signers  found  it  inconvenient  to  have  their 
signatures  acknowledged  legally  at  their 
homes  or  places  of  business,  a  notary  would 
be  at  their  service  at  headquarters  without 
charge.  The  law  required  2,000  signatures  ; 
nearly  20,000  were  actually  secured,  and  the 
4,000  which  were  filed  in  the  nominating 
petition  represented  only  a  selection  from  the 
cart  loads  in  possession  of  the  nominators. 
This  done,  the  machinery  for  conducting  the 
canvass  sprang  into  existence  almost  as 
quickly. 

Nobody  had  seriously  thought  before  the 
middle  of  October  of  organizing  the  city 
completely  on  the  lines  of  an  independent 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  103 

party  in  the  interests  of  this  single  candidate. 
The  plan  was  simply  to  do  as  well  as  possi- 
ble with  the  machinery  already  in  existence. 
House  to  house  canvasses  were  talked  of,  al- 
though a  house  to  house  canvass  of  2,000,000 
people  and  330,000  voters  is  anything  but  a 
joke.  Just  as  it  was,  the  Citizens  Union  had 
a  far  more  complete  organization  than  had 
ever  been  applied  before  to  the  interests  of  a 
single  candidate  for  what,  by  ordinary  po- 
litical standards,  is  a  minor  office.  To  have 
any  organization  at  all  for  such  a  candidate, 
indeed,  was  a  novelty. 

It  was  just  sixteen  days  before  election  that 
the  determination  was  reached  that  if  the 
work  for  Jerome  was  worth  doing  at  all  it 
was  worth  doing  right.  The  great  party  or- 
ganizations of  New  York  had  learned  by  a 
century's  experience  how  a  campaign  could 
be  most  effectively  conducted.  It  was  the 
business  of  the  Jerome  workers  to  profit  by 
their  example.  That  meant  that  the  Jerome 
organization,  like  Tammany  and  the  Re- 
publican, must  have  a  regularly  appointed 
"leader"  for  every  assembly  district — the 
Citizens  Union  already  had  in  most — and 
under  him  a  "captain"  for  every  election 
district  or  precinct.  There  were  1,116  such 
election  districts  in  the  county.     Beside  the 


I04  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

"  captains,"  if  the  precedents  of  efficient  party 
work  were  to  be  followed,  and  the  privileges 
of  the  election  liaw  availed  of,  there  must  be 
"  watchers,"  two  if  possible  for  every  polling 
place,  to  watch  the  conduct  of  the  election 
during  the  day  and  at  night  stand  by  and 
see  that  the  count  was  fair. 

The  ordinary  voter  undoubtedly  never 
knew  or  cared  just  who  it  was  that  was  doing 
the  work  in  behalf  of  Jerome.  That  there 
were  various  independent  organizations  co- 
operating in  the  campaign  was  apparent  only 
at  the  beginning.  The  emblem  of  the  Citi- 
zens Union,  the  Statue  of  Liberty,  was  not 
placed  on  the  ballot  at  all.  "  Jerome  Head- 
quarters "  signs  took  the  place  of  the  placards 
of  the  separate  bodies  working  for  Jerome, 
even  over  many  of  the  converted  Citizens 
Union  District  headquarters.  Those  opened 
in  districts  where  the  Union  had  not  been 
previously  represented  bore  the  same  sign  as 
a  matter  of  course.  Theoretically  the  Citi- 
zens Union  was  working  at  one  place,  the 
Jerome  nominators  at  another,  and  the  Jerome 
Campaign  Club  at  a  third.  Practically,  after 
the  first  week  the  campaign  was  everywhere 
talked  about  and  written  about  as  a  unit. 
The  active  work  was  done  under  the  super- 
vision of  members  of  a  quite  informal  asso- 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  I05 

ciatlon,  the  nucleus  of  which  was  a  g^oup  of 
young  men,  mostly  lawyers,  one  being  a 
member  of  the  district  attorney's  staff,  who 
came  together  through  spending  their  sum- 
mers at  an  old  mansion  on  Staten  Island. 

In  the  doubtful  period  between  Jerome's 
announcement  of  his  candidacy  and  the  actual 
beginning  of  the  campaign,  their  table-talk 
had  naturally  turned  often  to  the  district  at- 
torney's chances.  First  two  or  three  became 
enthusiastic  in  Jerome's  cause,  others  joined 
them  until  there  were  fifteen  or  sixteen  men 
ready  to  do  some  work  and  a  half  dozen  who 
really  devoted  themselves  to  it.  They  began 
to  call  themselves  the  Jerome  Campaign 
Club.  Then  the  question  arose  whether  they 
should  throw  in  their  fortunes  with  the  old 
Citizens  Union  or  work  independently. 
Though  a  good  share  of  them  were  Citizens 
Union  men,  they  decided  on  the  latter  course. 
And  the  outcome  of  that  decision  was  a  new 
demonstration  of  the  power  which  enthusiasm 
and  energy  have  in  any  cause.  Because  this 
little  group  of  men  contributed  these  two 
things,  their  headquarters  became  finally  the 
centre  of  the  campaign's  activity.  During 
the  first  week,  the  newspapers  scarcely  knew 
even  what  to  call  the  place.  Before  election 
day  it  was  "the  Jerome  headquarters,"  and 


I06  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

SO  known  to  everybody  concerned  in  the 
work.  Mr.  Philip  J.  McCook,  one  of  the 
"  Campaign  Club,"  in  a  little  up-stairs  room, 
was  in  entire  charge  of  the  details  of  organi- 
zation, and  Mr.  Charles  J.  Fay,  another  of 
the  group,  was  at  the  head  of  the  regiments 
of  watchers.  The  story  of  this  little  associa- 
tion is  on  all  accounts  one  of  the  most  in- 
spiring parts  of  the  campaign. 

It  opened  headquarters  in  the  rear  din- 
ing-room of  the  old  Union  Square  hotel. 
The  first  day  there  was  only  a  desk  behind 
which  three  or  four  men  were  making  the  be- 
ginnings of  a  card  catalogue  of  all  who  were 
willing  to  act  as  watchers.  The  second  day 
another  desk  was  added  for  the  functions  of 
a  speaker's  bureau.  The  fourth  day  the  en- 
rollment of  canvassers  began,  and  the  fifth 
another  desk  marked  "organization,"  was 
set  up.  By  the  end  of  a  week  temporary 
cloth  screens  were  put  up  to  separate  the 
various  departments  like  so  many  bathing 
houses  with  an  aisle  between  them.  These 
screens  were  speedily  hung  with  maps  of  the 
city,  which  grew  larger  and  more  checked 
and  marked  as  the  campaign  progressed. 

To  these  quarters  came  daily  volunteers  to 
be  registered  as  watchers  or  canvassers.  At 
the  end  of  a  week,  the  nominating  petitions 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  107 

on  file  at  the  county  clerk's  office  were  gone 
over  and  a  letter  sent  to  every  one  of  the 
signers  asking  them  to  report  for  work  to  the 
leaders  of  the  districts.  To  this  one  letter, 
five  or  six  hundred  men  responded.  Before 
election  day  the  plan  which  had  been  at  first 
rejected  as  utterly  impracticable,  was  an  ac- 
tuality. Practically  the  Tammany  or  Repub- 
lican organizations  had  been  duplicated  in 
the  interests  of  the  independent  candidate. 
The  central  headquarters  were  in  instant  com- 
munication by  wire  with  every  part  of  the 
great  machine,  and  though  the  telephone  bills 
were  staggering  this  proved  one  of  the  best 
of  investments.  There  were  captains  for  all 
but  about  fifty  of  the  i,ii6  election  districts. 
There  were  between  1,500  and  2,000  watch- 
ers for  election  day,  making  one  for  every 
polling  place  and  two  for  most  of  them. 
Party  watchers  usually  receive  $5  for  their 
day's  work.  These  all  served  without  pay. 
In  some  districts,  to  be  sure,  the  captains  also 
acted  as  watchers,  but  this  was  by  no  means 
the  rule.  It  was  an  organized  and  disci- 
plined army,  in  short,  that  fought  the  suc- 
cessful fight  for  Jerome. 

The  Jerome  campaign  has  been  called  a 
college  men's  campaign.  It  is  true  that  the 
typical  Jerome  worker  was  a  young  man  of 


Io8  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

education.  Some  undergraduates,  even, 
came  from  the  colleges  in  and  near  New  York 
city,  and  were  enrolled  as  watchers.  The 
leader  of  a  district  east  of  Central  Park — one 
of  those  in  which  the  Citizens  Union  organi- 
zation had  ceased  to  exist — himself  an  Irish 
Roman  Catholic,  pressed  into  service  the 
young  men  from  the  Union  Theological 
seminary,  and  found  them  very  efficient 
aides. 

But  the  army  was  by  no  means  made  up 
solely  of  these  classes.  The  appeal  to  sign- 
ers of  the  nominating  petition  in  particular 
brought  forward  numbers  of  men  who  had 
not  been  everlastingly  preached  to,  as  every 
college  graduate  has,  about  their  duty  to  par- 
ticipate in  public  affairs,  and  whose  help  was 
for  that  very  reason  in  some  aspects  more 
significant.  There  were  clerks  and  salesmen, 
and  to  some  extent  mechanics.  More  than 
one  stenographer  from  some  down-town  office 
gave  his  services  at  headquarters  in  the  even- 
ing after  his  regular  day's  work  was  done. 
There  were  no  greater  Jerome  enthusiasts  than 
the  chauffeurs  of  the  automobile  patrol  which 
was  established  over  the  city  on  election  day 
and  before. 

Mr.  Jerome  has  been  criticised  rather 
severely  for  his  failure  to  make  a  full  state- 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  IO9 

ment  of  the  receipts  and  expenditures  of  his 
campaign.  He  did  take  advantage  of  the 
technical  phraseology  of  the  law  to  file  a  dec- 
laration that  he  personally  spent  nothing  at 
all.  The  reason  for  this  was  a  sense  of  obli- 
gation towards  contributors  who  desired  to 
remain  anonymous  and  the  desire  to  avoid 
controversies  which  might  have  arisen  had 
the  list  been  published  with  indefinite  desig- 
nations or  blanks.  Really  there  is  no 
chapter  in  Mr.  Jerome's  career  which  should 
give  him  more  unalloyed  satisfaction  than 
the  raising  of  that  campaign  fund.  If  the 
practical  work  through  the  districts  was  on  a 
democratic  basis,  its  financing  was  not  less  so. 
There  were,  in  theory  at  least,  three  sep- 
arate funds.  The  Citizens  Union  had  one, 
the  Jerome  nominators  had  one  and  there  was 
a  third  which  was  spoken  of  as  "  Jerome's 
personal  fund."  The  Citizens  Union  issued 
on  October  17th  an  appeal  for  $50,000,  an- 
nouncing its  intention  to  "  associate  with  it  a 
number  of  well-known  citizens."  The  Jerome 
nominators  two  days  later  asked  for  $65,000. 
They,  as  the  call  for  funds  explained,  "  have  no 
organization,  but  are  simply  a  body  of  workers 
dependent  for  funds  upon  those  who  believe 
in  a  fearless  and  honest  administration  of  this 
most  important  office."     The  money  began 


no  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

to  come  at  once,  and  it  is  the  proud  distinc- 
tion of  this  campaign  that  it  did  not  come  in 
large  corporate  checks,  but  in  small  amounts 
from  individuals  whose  hearts  were  in  what 
they  sent.  The  largest  check  received  was 
for  $5,000.  The  smallest  item  was  a  "  lucky- 
penny."  The  figures  for  the  three  funds 
were  as  follows : 

Amount.  Number. 

Citizens  Union $19,892.80  416 

Jerome  Nominators  ...  47,857.21  1,506 

Personal  fund 52,683.52  521 

Total, 120,433.53        2,443 

The  average  contribution,  then,  was  only 
$48.29.  It  took  a  thousand  of  them  to  equal 
the  amount  given  by  single  insurance  com- 
panies in  any  of  the  last  three  national 
campaigns.  Yet  there  were  beyond  all 
question  very  many  more  than  2,500  actual 
donors.  Checks  entered  as  single  items 
were  often  in  reality  made  up  of  many 
smaller  sums.  Thus  one  check  for  $2,500 
was  the  contribution  of  the  hundreds  of  em- 
ployees in  a  large  publishing  house.  A 
substantial  check  from  the  Cotton  Exchange 
was  made  up  of  dozens  of  twenty-five  dollar 
and  ten  dollar  contributions.  Some  of  the 
newspapers  which  received   money  for  the 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  III 

fund  merely  turned  in  the  aggregates  to  the 
treasurers  so  the  separate  items  never  went 
on  the  books  at  all.  The  treasurers  of  the 
three  funds  agree  that  it  would  be  well  in- 
side the  truth  to  add  one  third  to  the  number 
of  individuals  contributing  to  the  fund,  and 
place  the  average  contribution  not  much 
over  thirty  dollars.  Party  organizations  that 
have  assessed  office  holders  a  percentage  of 
their  salaries  and  thus  received  odd  small 
amounts  could  perhaps  produce  an  apparent 
parallel  to  this  showing.  Otherwise  the  first 
Lincoln  campaign  may  furnish  the  nearest 
precedent. 

Much  of  the  "human  interest"  of  the 
campaign  centred  from  the  very  first  about 
these  collections.  There  was  a  story  in  al- 
most every  one.  A  professional  gambler 
walked  in  one  day  with  $50  for  the  Jerome 
fund.  "  It's  for  the  *  square  deal/  "  he  said. 
*'  Didn't  Jerome  close  you  up  ? "  asked  Mr. 
Corwine,  the  treasurer.  "Sure,"  said  the 
visitor.  "  But  he  closed  up  the  fellow  across 
the  block,  too.  There  wasn't  any  big  fellows 
running  down  town  with  a  wad  and  then 
opening  up  again."  A  Sixth  Avenue  saloon- 
keeper volunteered  $25  with  much  the  same 
explanation.  A  strange  man  handed  over 
$45    in    bills.     "  Forty   of   that's   Tammany 


112  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

money,"  he  explained,  "and  five's  mine." 
When  questioned,  he  said  that  he  had 
lunched  that  day  with  eight  of  his  friends  all 
of  whom  were  minor  Tammany  office-holders. 
The  talk  naturally  running  on  the  election  it 
came  out  that,  though  all  were  loyally  for 
McClellan,  every  man  of  the  group  was  for 
Jerome,  too.  They  had  thereupon  decided 
to  contribute  five  dollars  apiece  and  had 
turned  the  purse  over  to  the  only  non-organ- 
ization man  present  to  deliver.  A  newsboys' 
club  in  an  East  Side  settlement  made  up  be- 
tween four  and  five  dollars  in  pennies,  and 
Mr.  Jerome  himself  procured  a  copy  of  the 
membership  list  so  that  he  might  acknowl- 
edge the  contributions  individually,  even 
though  the  leaders  had  confessed  to  one  of 
the  settlement  workers  that  they  had  "  licked 
any  kid  what  wouldn't  chip  in."  Again,  a 
workman  in  overalls  hurried  into  the  Union 
Square  headquarters  at  the  noon  hour  and 
slapped  his  hand,  palm  down,  on  the  table. 
"  Here's  something  for  the  old  man,"  he  said 
awkwardly,  and  fairly  ran  out  of  the  place, 
without  waiting  for  thanks.  He  had  left  a 
silver  quarter.  Two  office  scrub-women  were 
waiting  one  morning  for  the  treasurer's  office 
to  open.  One  had  brought  one  dollar,  the 
other  two,  and  they  offered  it  freely  to  help 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  II3- 

the  man  who  had  done  so  much  to  protect 
the  daughters  of  the  poor. 

There  was  a  humorous  side  to  the  col- 
lections, too.  A  big  florid-faced  Irishman 
approached  the  treasurer  most  secretively, 
insisting  on  a  private  interview  in  one  cor- 
ner. He  brought  a  substantial  contribution 
but  absolutely  refused  to  tell  his  name. 
Finally,  shaking  hands  and  refusing  to  take 
a  receipt,  he  started  to  leave,  but  at  the  door 
turned  around  with  a  flourish.     "  My  name's 

and  I'm  from  the  — th  district.     Now 

do  you  know  why  I  don't  want  my  name 
mentioned  ?  "  He  had  given  one  of  the  most 
potent  names  in  the  Tammany  hierarchy  and 
had  located  himself  in  a  stronghold  of  the 
organization.  That  was  money  from  an  un- 
expected quarter,  but  a  large  number  of  bills 
and  checks  came  from  outside  of  New  York 
City  entirely.  The  westernmost  point  from 
which  donations  were  received  was  Seattle, 
the  easternmost,  Paris,  France,  and  the  south- 
.^jnmost.  New  Orleans.  The  middle  west  was 
especially  notable  for  the  number  of  small 
contributions.  So  this  campaign  fought  in 
only  a  part  of  a  single  city,  came  to  be  one 
in  which  the  whole  nation  gave  a  helping 
hand. 

No  one  has  ever  complimented  this  Jerome 


114  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

campaign  more  highly  than  some  of  the 
"practical"  party  politicians  who  felt  its 
strength  from  the  other  side.  It  was  con- 
ducted by  men  of  ideas.  The  automobile 
patrol  already  referred  to  was  one  of  these. 
It  proved  so  effective  a  method  of  keeping 
the  machinery  in  condition  during  the  strain 
of  election  day,  that  the  example  is  likely  to 
be  copied.  Polling  places  are  spread  over  a 
large  area,  all  manner  of  unforeseen  contin- 
gencies are  likely  to  occur,  and  few  details  of 
political  management  are  more  difficult  than 
the  proper  supervision  and  adjustment  of  the 
party's  representation  on  election  day.  The 
Jerome  workers  provided  for  this  by  dividing 
the  county  into  more  than  a  dozen  inspection 
districts  and  assigning  an  energetic  worker 
in  an  automobile  to  look  after  each  one. 
Nothing  is  more  typical  of  the  intelligent, 
careful  style  of  campaigning  than  the  clear, 
lawyer-like  instruction  given  to  the  watcher's 
patrol.     A  bit  of  it  is  worth  quoting : 

"There  must  be  one  capable  and  intelli- 
gent watcher  at  every  polling  place.  To 
secure  this  by  shifting  of  watchers  and  calls 
from  the  reserve  corps  is  the  first  duty  of  the 
watcher's  patrol. 

"Each  patrol  should  begin  his  first  tour 
immediately  after  the  polls  open.     He  should 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  I15 

carefully  note  the  condition  in  each  district 
and  after  completing  the  round  at  once  re- 
port by  telephone  concerning  watchers  to 
Mr.  Fay  and  concerning  the  placing  of  signs 
and  instructions  to  Mr.  McCook.  These  re- 
ports should  be  concise. 

"  Immediately  after  the  first  report,  the 
patrol  should  return  to  districts  where  de- 
fective conditions  were  observed.  See  if  they 
still  exist  and,  if  so,  strive  to  remedy  them. 
By  two  o'clock  he  should  report  whether  all 
the  polls  are  manned.  By  five  o'clock  two 
Jerome  watchers  should  be  ready  at  every 
polling  place  ready  for  the  count." 

One  lesson  was  instilled  into  the  force  of 
Jerome  watchers  which  it  would  be  well  if  every 
body  of  soldiers  in  the  good  fight  could  learn 
equally  well.  That  was  the  old  but  never 
outgrown  truth  about  the  effectiveness  of  a 
soft  answer.  J  erome's  representatives  did  not 
lose  their  tempers,  they  did  not  go  into  the 
polling  place  with  the  preconceived  and  ex- 
pressed belief  that  they  were  going  to  be 
cheated,  they  knew  their  rights  and  the  terms 
of  the  election  law  and  they  minded  their 
business.  And  this  meant  more  than  the  out- 
sider might  suppose.  The  average  New 
York  election  board,  half  Democrats  and  half 
Republicans,    earning    their    statutory    per 


Il6  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

diem  for  three  days  of  registration  and  the 
election  itself,  is  a  most  inept  organization, 
but  on  the  whole  it  means  uncommonly  well. 
It  sometimes  seems  as  if  deaf  men,  men  with 
writer's  cramp,  obstinate  men  and  men  con- 
stitutionally behindhand  were  sought  out 
for  the  express  purpose  of  conducting  the 
election.  As  conspirators  they  are  rather  on 
the  comic  opera  order. 

"  Look  here,  there's  one  apiece,  and  it 
won't  make  any  difference.  Let's  count  them 
all,"  was  the  suggestion  of  an  election  clerk 
when  three  illegally  marked  ballots  had  been 
laid  aside,  one  marked  for  each  of  the  mayor- 
alty candidates,  with  Jerome  for  district  at- 
torney on  all  three.  He  seemed  both  pained 
and  puzzled  when  the  Jerome  watcher  ob- 
jected and  insisted  on  having  them  thrown  out. 

Mr.  McCook,  a  former  member  of  the 
Republican  county  committee  who  was  in 
general  charge  of  Mr.  Jerome's  organization 
through  the  campaign,  jokingly  said  at  the 
congratulatory  banquet  that  the  hot  coffee  and 
sandwiches  which  the  Women's  Municipal 
League  sent  to  the  polling  places  during  the 
long  hours  while  the  ballots  were  being  ex- 
amined was  a  very  great  help  in  securing  a 
fair  count.  There  was  no  joke  at  all  conveyed 
in  the  suggestion 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  I17 

"  Joyousness  "  was  the  word  used  by  one 
of  the  men  most  active  in  this  wonderful 
campaign  to  express  its  pervading  spirit. 
Men  who  had  intended  to  devote  their  spare 
time  to  the  work  found  themselves  dropping 
every  other  interest  and  working  for  the 
cause  almost  night  and  day.  But  those 
who  could  not  afford  this  sacrifice  gave  such 
time  as  they  could  in  the  same  spirit.  There 
never  was  harder  work ;  there  never  was 
more  disinterested  work.  Nine-tenths  of  the 
workers  the  day  after  election  had  no  thought 
of  asking  or  claiming  reward  of  any  sort. 
And  the  whole  Jerome  organization,  which 
some  wanted  to  perpetuate  as  an  independent 
body  and  might  in  time  have  become  a 
Pretorian  guard  of  politics,  dissolved  by  the 
common  consent  of  its  members  the  very  day 
its  task  was  done. 

All  this  happened  in  the  city  which  its 
neighbours  are  fond  of  calling  self-satisfied, 
cynical,  and  money-loving.  And  it  can  fairly 
be  said  that  no  public  man  ever  received  a 
more  tremendous  tribute  than  did  Mr.  Jerome 
in  the  very  nature  of  the  campaign  made  for  his 
reelection.  This  narrative  is  confined  almost 
wholly  to  the  details  of  the  organization  that 
sprang  into  existence  so  suddenly  in  the  in- 
terests   of    the    independent  candidate.      A 


Il8  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING- 

good  deal  has  been  written  about  the  muster- 
ing of  watchers  and  district  captains,  but  the 
speaker's  bureau's  barely  mentioned.  That 
is  because  the  Jerome  campaign  was  not  an 
effort  to  persuade  New  Yorkers  to  vote  for 
Mr.  Jerome.  It  was  simply  an  effort  to  aid 
and  encourage  New  Yorkers  who  already 
desired  to  retain  him  for  their  district  attorney. 
It  was  a  unique  canvass  in  that  it  proceeded 
on  the  supposition,  never  once  departed  from, 
that  every  intelligent  and  high  minded 
voter  was  in  favour  of  Jerome  to  begin  with. 
The  people  unquestionably  wanted  a  chance 
to  vote  for  him.  Yet  the  Tammany  conven- 
tion met  on  October  12th  and  Mr.  Charles 
F.  Murphy  made  it  nominate  some  one  else ; 
the  Republican  convention  met  on  Octo- 
ber 13th  and  Mr.  B.  B.  Odell  made  it  nomi- 
nate some  one  else.  Even  Mr.  Hearst,  who 
ran  for  mayor  on  a  platform  in  which  oppo- 
sition to  bosses  was  a  prominent  feature,  had 
his  personal  counsel  on  his  ticket  for  the  dis- 
trict attorneyship.  The  bosses  had  long  be- 
fore secured  for  New  York  state  a  form  of 
ballot  which  placed  a  tremendous  premium 
on  regularity  and  straight  party  nominations. 
No  independent  candidate  nominated  by  him- 
self in  a  special  column  in  a  state  using  that 
style  of  ballot  had  ever,  so  far  as  a  study 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  II9 

of  election  returns  shows,  been  elected  to 
any  office  representing  a  wide  area  or  a  large 
population.  Great  numbers  of  people  who 
sincerely  wanted  Jerome  were  unquestionably 
ready  to  give  his  cause  up  as  hopeless  when 
he  failed  to  secure  any  regular  party  endorse- 
ments. 

So  the  Jerome  organization  did  not  say, 
"  Mr.  Jerome  is  our  candidate  and  you  ought 
to  vote  for  him  for  this  and  that  reason."  Its 
appeal  was  rather :  **  The  bosses  have  at- 
tempted to  rob  you  of  your  chance  to  vote 
for  the  candidate  whom  you  all  want.  Are 
you  going  to  let  yourselves  be  discouraged 
and  strengthen  the  hold  of  these  bosses  for 
all  time  to  come  ?  It  is  perfectly  possible  to 
elect  Mr.  Jerome  without  the  help  of  any 
party  and  we  will  show  you  how  to  do  it." 
So  it  came  about  that  arguments  why  to  vote 
for  Jerome  were  entirely  subordinated  to  di- 
rections how  to  vote  for  him.  The  dead  walls 
and  street  car  signs  which  four  years  before 
had  shown  forth  the  legends  of  the  Reform 
campaign,  "  Vote  for  Low  and  Jerome  and 
keep  the  grafters  out,"  were  now  covered 
simply  with  facsimile  ballots  of  all  sizes  up  to 
the  sixteen  sheet  poster.  "  How  to  vote  for 
Jerome  and  the  Republican  ticket,"  "  How  to 
vote  for  Jerome  and  the  Democratic  ticket," 


I20  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

"  How  to  vote  for  Jerome  and  the  Municipal 
Ownership  ticket,"  "Do  not  mark  in  this 
circle,"  and  the  like. 

On  a  single  order  three  million  of  the 
small  sample  ballots  were  printed,  with  direc- 
tions for  voting  in  English,  German,  Italian, 
Yiddish  and  pure  Hebrew.  Triple  advertis- 
ing spaces  were  secured  in  every  surface, 
elevated  or  subway  car  in  Manhattan  and 
the  Bronx,  and  two  weeks  before  election  an- 
other contract  was  made  for  every  foot  of  un- 
occupied bill-boards  in  the  same  territory. 

It  was  really  not  the  rival  candidates  that 
the  Jerome  workers  were  combatting,  but 
the  great  American  tendency  to  swallow  a 
party  ticket  whole.  Mr.  Flammer,  the  Re- 
publican candidate,  formally  withdrew  twelve 
days  before  election  **  in  response  to  what  I 
recognize  to-day  as  the  sense  of  the  majority 
of  the  best  citizens  of  the  community,"  and 
the  county  committee  endorsed  Jerome,  yet, 
by  a  peculiar  provision  of  the  election  law, 
Flammer' s  name  remained  on  the  ballot  and 
13,348  citizens,  unwilling  or  unable  to  go  to 
the  trouble  of  splitting  their  tickets,  voted  for 
him  just  the  same.  The  fact  that  there  is  no 
educational  qualification  for  voting  in  New 
York,  partly  explains  the  elaborate  instruc- 
tional work  which  was  necessary  before  voters 


THE  JEROME  CAMPAIGN  121 

would  perform  what  is  really  a  simple  enough 
operation  in  voting.  And  yet  the  watchers 
at  the  polls  reported  little  if  any  advantage 
of  the  educated  over  the  uneducated  when 
the  puzzle  of  the  ballot  was  concerned.  The 
college  graduate  was  about  as  likely  to  mark 
it  the  wrong  way  as  the  illiterate  voter  who 
had  studied  his  sample  ballot  beforehand. 
It  was  in  spite  of  blunders  that  the  day  was 
carried.  Jerome's  vote  was  made  up  of  about 
three-eighths  who  voted  for  Ivins,  the  Re- 
publican, for  mayor,  three-eighths  who  voted 
for  Hearst,  the  Municipal  Ownership  candi- 
date and  one-fourth  supporters  of  McClellan, 
the  Tammany  mayor.  It  was  in  the  most 
literal  sense  a  victory  for  the  people,  without 
regard  to  old  affiliations. 


VI 

FOLK  AND  HIS  FOLLOWING 

THE  convention  which  nominated 
Joseph  W.  Folk  for  governor  of 
Missouri,  was  held  in  dog-days 
weather  and  Jefferson  City  was  as  hot  as  a 
western  river  town  can  be.  Everybody  was 
dusty  and  thirsty  and  the  question  of  how  to 
keep  endurably  cool  almost  distracted  atten- 
tion from  the  real  issues  of  the  convention. 
So  it  was  not  an  insignificant  fact  that  on 
one  of  the  upper  floors  of  the  hotel  which 
housed  all  the  candidates  there  was  to  be 
found  a  great  galvanized  iron  tub  of  ice 
water  and  a  tin  dipper  to  drink  it  from.  The 
coffee-coloured  water  of  the  Missouri  River 
when  it  is  filtered,  as  this  was,  is  as  sweet 
and  pellucid  as  any  in  the  world,  and  this 
tub  was  as  grateful  as  a  perpetual  spring. 

Mr.  Folk  is  the  last  man  to  trouble  himself 
about  symbolism,  and  yet  that  tub  of  ice 
water  kept  brimming  when  every  variety  of 
more  elaborate  summer  beverage  was  being 
dispensed  somewhere  in  the  building,  would 
have  made  an  excellent  emblem  for  the  Folk 

122 


JOSEPH  WINGATE  FOLK 

Born,  Brownsville,  Tennessee,  October  28,  1869. 
Graduated    Vanderbilt    University,    law    department, 

1890. 
Practiced  law,  Brownsville. 
Moved  to  St.  Louis,  1892. 
Arbitrated  Street  Railway  strike,  1898. 
Elected  Circuit  Attorney  as  Democrat,  1900. 
Elected  Governor  of  Missouri,  1904, 

' '  A  revolution  is  being  wrought  in  the  conscience  of 
mankind,  and  this  is  only  its  beginning.  The  fight  for 
city,  state  and  nation  must  be  kept  up  with  ever-increas- 
ing vigour  ." 


FOLK  AND  HIS  FOLLOWING  1 23 

movement  and  even  for  Mr.  Folk  himself, 
unpretentious,  if  you  please,  refreshing  and 
satisfying.  The  outsider's  preconceived  no- 
tion of  Folk  is  apt  to  be  ludicrously  incorrect. 
He  is  a  small  man,  his  manner  is  not  master- 
ful at  all,  but  altogether  easy  and  affable, 
while  instead  of  having  the  set  jaw  with 
which  the  fighter  for  righteousness  is  en- 
dowed by  convention,  he  is  smiling  a  great 
deal  of  the  time.  His  voice,  too,  is  soft  and 
agreeable  revealing  a  trace  of  his  southern 
rearing.  His  face  is  round,  rounder  now 
than  it  was  in  1904  for  he  has  taken  on  flesh 
since  he  became  governor — his  hands  and 
feet  small  and  his  dress  rather  conspicuously 
neat  in  its  details.  He  has  not  Weaver's 
chin  nor  Jerome's  stinging  voice,  nor  indeed 
any  "  tag  "  in  the  way  of  a  noticeable  physical 
peculiarity.  And  yet  a  stranger  who  saw 
this  man  without  knowing  who  he  was  or 
what  he  had  done  would  certainly  be  a  long 
time  forgetting  him. 

No  one  thing  about  Folk  is  more  impres- 
sive than  his  total  freedom  from  that  form  of 
affectation  which  it  is  a  little  uncharitable  to 
call  posing  since  it  merely  consists  in  trying 
to  appear  as  nearly  as  possible  as  one's  con- 
stituents would  like  their  fearless  representa- 
tive to  appear.     Mr.  Folk  makes  no  more 


124  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

effort  to  be  other  than  his  natural  self  on  the 
platform  than  at  home.  When  he  was  picked 
out  for  his  first  office,  the  circuit  attorneyship, 
and  told  the  committee  who  waited  on  him 
that  he  did  not  want  the  office  but  would  do 
his  duty  if  he  were  placed  in  it  no  one  sup- 
posed that  he  meant  any  more  by  it  than  the 
ordinary  official  platitude.  He  told  them 
that  deep  purpose,  doubtless,  in  as  quiet  a 
way  as  if  he  were  announcing  his  intention 
to  go  out  for  luncheon  at  twelve  o'clock 
every  day. 

Nicknames  bestowed  by  opponents  are 
occasionally  highly  descriptive,  but  "  Holy 
Joe"  which  the  scoffers  have  taken  to  call- 
ing Folk  is  a  ludicrous  misfit  for  the  sense 
in  which  they  mean  it.  Perhaps  at  first 
sight  there  is  a  suggestion  of  the  clerical 
about  his  manner.  But  there  could  be  no 
one  farther  removed  from  the  sanctimonious 
or  self-righteous.  He  does  not  lay  down  the 
law,  he  does  not  thunder.  He  simply  ex- 
plains in  plain  language  the  dangers  which 
he  has  detected  during  his  political  experi- 
ence and  the  calamitous  results  that  are  sure 
to  follow  if  these  evils  are  not  checked.  It 
is  the  quietness,  the  simplicity  of  it  that  is 
impressive.  Because  this  story  is  begun  with 
a  reference  to  the  convention  which  nomi- 


FOLK  AND  HIS  FOLLOWING  1 25 

nated  him  for  governor,  there  may  be  quoted 
for  an  example  of  his  style  of  speaking,  his 
impromptu  remarks  accepting  the  nomina- 
tion, delivered  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, just  before  the  dawn  lighted  up  the 
beautiful  stretches  of  the  Missouri  River. 

"The  responsibility  for  the  existence  of 
corruption  does  not  rest  upon  either  party, 
but  the  Democratic  party  has  assumed  the 
responsibility  for  stamping  it  out,  and  we 
want  all  good  citizens  of  every  political  be- 
lief to  aid  us.  The  battle  against  boodle  has 
only  begun  in  Missouri.  If  I  am  elected  to  a 
larger  opportunity,  I  propose  to  make  Mis- 
souri the  most  unhealthy  place  in  all  the  land 
for  a  corruptionist  to  operate  in.  There  is 
work  to  be  done  in  this  State,  in  moral, 
material  and  intellectual  advancement,  which 
you  have  commissioned  me  to  do.  The  com- 
mission is  a  sacred  one  and  I  shall  observe  it 
as  such.  Here  in  the  presence  of  this  great 
multitude,  I  consecrate  myself  to  the  work 
you  have  assigned  to  me,  and  with  your  help 
and  as  long  as  God  gives  me  life  and  strength 
to  do  it,  will  combat  all  things  that  dishonour 
and  oppress." 

It  is  one  of  the  most  frequently  recounted 
incidents  of  Mr.  Folk's  career  that  the  infor- 
mation which  led  to  the  first  of  his  boodle 


126  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

prosecutions  was  contained  in  a  newspaper* 
item,  regarding  a  fund  deposed  with  a  cer- 
tain bank  for  use  in  securing  the  passage  of 
a  certain  ordinance.  But  the  real  significance 
of  this  story  does  not  lie  in  the  fact  that  it 
was  an  accident  which  set  the  legal  machin- 
ery in  motion,  nor  that  newspaper  reporters 
are  preternaturally  acute,  but  that  in  the  city 
of  St.  Louis  in  those  days  corruptionists  were 
so  bold  that,  for  the  purpose  of  plots  among 
themselves  they  were  not  afraid  to  throw  out 
hints  like  that  publicly.  The  ten  line  item 
which  was  the  first  inanimate  agent  in  adding 
twenty  names  to  the  list  of  thirty-four  persons 
convicted  of  bribery  in  all  our  States  and 
cities  during  fifty  years  was  published  in  just 
the  same  way  that  stock  jobbers  set  afloat 
rumours  that  will  be  caught  at  by  their  own 
kind.  But  imagine  a  city  where  corruption 
was  carried  on  in  the  spirit  and  with  the  or- 
dinary accessories  of  mere  stock  speculation  1 
"  This  campaign  has  been  urged  not  for  a 
man,  but  for  an  idea,"  was  Folk's  own  phrase. 
It  was  exactly  true,  yet  it  would  hardly  have 
been  true  if  he  had  used  the  more  conven- 
tional phrase  of  self-effacing  candidates  and 
declared  that  any  other  Democrat  would  have 
been  equally  fitted  for  the  task.  He  began 
his  work  at  a  time  when  St.  Louis  was  far  from 


FOLK  AND  HIS  FOLLOWING  127 

being  ready  for  it.  That  is  another  way  of 
expressing  the  "  shamelessness  "  which  Lin- 
coln Steflfens  found  in  a  citizenship  that  kept 
convicted  boodlers  actually  in  office.  It  con- 
stitutes the  fundamental  distinction  between 
the  Missouri  "  revolution  "  and  others  typified 
by  that  of  Philadelphia.  Folk  is  not  a  man 
who  happened  to  be  in  office  at  a  time  when 
the  people  demanded  the  suppression  of  such 
and  such  public  evils.  Not  only  did  he  be- 
gin his  great  work  on  his  own  responsibility 
against  advice  and  common  prudence  and  all 
the  manifold  forms  of "  pressure  "  which  allied 
business  and  politics  can  exert,  but  when 
reluctant  support  did  come,  it  came  most  ef- 
fectively from  outside  the  city  for  which  he 
had  done  so  much.  Private  citizens  supplied 
the  special  funds  for  his  boodle  prosecutions, 
Mayor  Wells  individually  making  one  of 
the  largest  donations.  But  the  city  as  a 
whole  responded  slowly. 

So  the  "  Folk  movement "  was  not  a  phe- 
nomenon simultaneous  with  Mr.  Folk's  own 
work  in  office,  but  came  after  the  first  stage 
of  that  work  was  over.  Nevertheless,  it  is  in 
itself  one  of  the  most  important  and  signifi- 
cant parts  of  the  general  upheaval. 

It  was  the  standing  joke  of  the  nominating 
convention  of  1904  that  the  delegates  knew 


128  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

neither  each  other  nor  the  politicians  who  for 
a  generation  had  led  the  party  in  the  State. 
A  seasoned  worker  who  had  attended  a  dozen 
State  conventions  in  his  time  remarked  that 
out  of  forty-four  delegates  from  his  district, 
he  was  personally  acquainted  with  just  eight. 
That  was  concrete  evidence  of  the  fact  that  a 
new  set  of  men  were  dominating  the  Demo- 
cratic party  in  the  State.  These  men,  who 
had  responded  so  loyally  to  Mr.  Folk's  ap- 
peal, were  not  politicians  at  all  in  the  ordinary 
sense.  The  retainers  of  the  old  regime  twitted 
them  with  their  innocence.  Stories  like  this 
were  told :  In  Howard  County,  the  home  of 
the  State  treasurer  then  in  office,  the  conven- 
tion had  instructed  its  delegates  for  Folk  and 
was  finishing  its  routine  business  when  some 
one  offered  the  customary  resolutions  com- 
mending the  retiring  State  administration. 
It  was  promptly  voted  down.  "What  on 
earth  did  you  do  that  for?"  asked  a  sophis- 
ticated friend  of  one  of  the  Folk  partisans  who 
controlled  the  convention.  "  You've  nothing 
against  Bob  Williams,  and  here  you  have 
turned  him  down  right  in  his  own  county." 
"  His  own  county,"  exclaimed  the  other.  "  I 
had  no  idea  he  lived  in  this  county." 

A  large  share  of  the  Folk  delegates  were 
farmers  whose  tanned  and  furrowed  cheeks 


FOLK  AND  HIS  FOLLOWING  1 29 

were  sufficient  badges  of  their  calling. 
"These  tall  red  men  with  the  single  Folk 
badges  are  the  ones  to  look  out  for.  They 
are  ready  for  anything,"  commented  a  local 
observer,  contrasting  the  simon  pure  Folk 
men  with  the  "  good  fellows  "  who  had  pinned 
Folk  badges  beside  those  of  candidates  for 
minor  offices  who  belonged  to  the  older  school 
of  Missouri  politics.  These  farmer  delegates 
were,  indeed,  ready  for  anything.  The  story 
got  about  a  week  before  the  convention  that 
they  were  going  to  bring  their  shotguns 
and  use  them  if  necessary  rather  than  see 
their  victory  stolen  by  fraud.  They  did  not 
need  to  go  to  this  extreme,  but  one  who  saw 
the  men  of  that  nominating  convention  can 
easily  believe  that  they  would  not  have  stopped 
at  bloodshed  if  it  had  been  necessary  to  pro- 
tect their  rights. 

Jerome,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  choice  of 
his  own  townsmen  and  neighbours.  Folk, 
after  making  his  record  as  prosecutor  of  cor- 
ruption in  St.  Louis,  had  to  make  his  appeal 
to  outsiders.  "  Does  anybody  suppose," 
asked  Hawes,  the  rival  candidate,  before  the 
Credentials  Committee,  "that  Folk  could 
have  carried  the  '  Kerry  patch '  ? "  Not 
merely  from  the  "tough"  quarters,  but  from 
most  of  the  city  for  which  the  circuit  attorney 


I30  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

had  done  so  much,  anti-Folk  delegates  were 
sent  to  the  convention.  James  J.  Butler,  son 
of  the  old  boss  of  St.  Louis  and  twice  un- 
seated as  congressman,  gave  to  one  of  the 
newspapers  an  interview  which  expressed 
Mr.  Folk's  plight  in  the  city  in  a  way  that 
was  illuminating  as  well  as  droll.  *'  Why,  in 
one  of  the  wards  in  which  they  have  announced 
contest,"  he  said,  "  the  truth  is  that  Folk  did 
not  get  a  vote.  It  looked  so  bad  that  we 
thought  people  would  say  it  surely  was  a 
game,  so  we  just  credited  him  with  a  few. 
If  that  ballot  box  is  opened  now  I  say  now 
that  not  a  vote  will  be  found  in  it  for  Folk." 

There  cannot  be  many  instances  on  record 
in  which  a  politician  has  confessed  tamper- 
ing with  the  returns  in  order  that  his  op- 
ponent might  make  a  better  showing. 

It  is  not  fair  to  the  city  of  St.  Louis  to  at- 
tribute the  anti-Folk  victory  in  the  primary 
solely  to  indifTerence  and  lack  of  sympathy. 
In  the  actual  election  Folk  carried  the  city, 
with  the  aid  of  a  great  many  Republican  votes, 
by  10,000,  or  three  times  Roosevelt's  plural- 
ity. Intimidation  on  the  day  of  the  primary 
had  much  to  do  with  it.  Numbers  of  "  good 
citizens  "  did  not  get  to  the  polls  at  all.  The 
election  machinery  was  all  in  the  hands  of 
the  old  machine  men,  and  the  story  had  got 


FOLK  AND  HIS  FOLLOWING  131 

about  that  gangs  of  thugs  would  be  allowed 
by  the  police  to  do  very  much  as  they  pleased 
around  the  polls. 

The  old  saying  that  in  politics  every  rotten 
egg  makes  votes  for  its  target  had  its  full  ap- 
plication here,  however.  There  was  no  bet- 
ter Folk  document  than  the  story  of  the  con- 
vention in  St.  Louis  County — which  is  not  the 
same  as  the  city  but  near  it.  The  Folk  men 
who  controlled  the  committee  were  actually 
afraid  at  first  to  announce  the  place  of  that 
convention  for  fear  that  it  would  be  packed 
by  St.  Louis  "Indians."  Their  fears  were 
only  too  well  grounded,  for  the  "  Indians " 
did  descend  upon  the  Clayton  court-house, 
where  the  convention  was  finally  held,  broke 
in  the  door,  dragged  the  chairman  from  his 
place  and  furiously  assailed  not  only  the  Folk 
delegates  but  the  newspaper  photographers 
whose  pictures  of  the  wild  scene  might  have 
been  the  means  of  identifying  some  of  the 
notorious  characters  among  the  invaders. 
That  story  filled  the  rural  delegates  with  a 
horror  of  "city  politics"  that,  in  its  final 
stages,  was  alrriost  amusing.  It  showed  to 
the  State  and  to  the  whole  country  just  what 
Mr.  Folk  was  "  up  against."  Ministers  rep- 
resenting every  denomination  signed  an  ap- 
peal to  the  State  to  punish  the  candidate  in 


132  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

whose  interest  such  an  outrage  was  com- 
mitted. 

And  to  that  appeal  the  country  districts  had 
responded.  Mr.  Folk  himself  once  jokingly 
said  that  every  farmer  in  the  State  with  a 
beard  more  than  two  inches  long  was  for  him. 
Folk's  was  not  a  campaign  of  bands  and 
red  fire  either  before  or  after  his  nomination. 
There  was  neither  money  nor  occasion  for 
these  customary  accessories  to  a  "  whirlwind 
campaign"  when  in  the  raw  days  of  late 
winter  the  circuit  attorney  started  out  for  his 
speaking  tour.  There  were  not  even  other 
orators,  or  if  there  were  they  did  not  count. 
It  was  Folk  himself  whom  the  people  wanted 
to  hear,  and  he  had  simply  gone  forth  to  show 
himself  to  the  people  whose  help  he  was  ask^ 
ing  in  one  of  the  greatest  works  any  American 
had  undertaken  in  a  generation.  A  sobering 
situation,  as  some  one  has  expressed  it  in  a 
line,  was  dealt  with  in  a  sober  way.  Folk's 
platform  was  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal."  His 
speeches  were  friendly  talks.  His  audiences 
were  drawn  from  all  the  countryside  within 
literally  thirty  miles  of  the  town  where  he 
happened  to  speak.  Probably  every  coun- 
try audience  to  which  he  spoke  contained 
farmers  who  had  ridden  twenty  miles  to 
hear  him.    The  ordinary  atmosphere  of  a 


FOLK  AND  HIS  FOLLOWING  1 33 

political  meeting  was  exchanged  for  one  al- 
most religious.  When  the  talk  was  over 
and  the  meeting  broke  up  there  was  a  quiet 
pressing  forward  to  grasp  the  new  leader's 
hand,  a  few  "  God  bless  yous  "  and  the  audi- 
ence turned  homeward  determined,  indeed 
consecrated,  but  with  hardly  a  thought  that 
the  conventional  cheers  were  the  proper  cere- 
monials for  ending  political  meetings. 

There  are  114  counties  in  Missouri  and  be- 
fore election  Mr.  Folk  had  spoken  in  all  but 
four  of  them.  Here  is  a  single  day's  itinerary 
as  quoted  from  the  newspapers  by  J.  J.  Mc- 
Auliffe  in  a  magazine  article  at  the  time : 

"  Mr.  Folk  arrived  in  Harrisonville  at  five 
o'clock  this  morning,  having  left  Jefferson 
City  at  two  o'clock.  He  slept  perhaps  an 
hour  on  the  train  and  two  hours  after  arriving 
in  Harrisonville,  making  three  hours  sleep  in 
all.  At  eight  o'clock  he  was  in  a  carriage 
and  drove  to  Freeman,  twelve  miles  away. 
Here  he  spoke  for  nearly  two  hours  to  an 
audience  that  overfilled  the  hall.  At  noon 
he  was  once  more  behind  a  team  going  over 
the  hard  dirt  roads  to  Drexel,  eighteen  miles. 
It  was  shortly  after  three  o'clock  when  he 
faced  his  large  audience  there  and  spoke  for 
an  hour  and  forty-five  minutes.  Supper  was 
taken  and  again  Mr.  Folk  waved  his  friends 


134  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

farewell  from  out  the  carriage  in  which  he 
was  seated.  To  Everett  he  drove,  fifteen 
miles  away,  where  another  rousing  meeting 
was  held.  Shordy  after  nine  o'clock  Mr. 
Folk  climbed  into  another  vehicle  and  drove 
sixteen  miles  to  this  place  where  he  boarded 
the  train  at  midnight  for  Kansas  City  and 
Andrew  County.  Or,  to  sum  up,  from  eight 
o'clock  this  morning  until  11:30  o'clock  to- 
night, Mr.  Folk  spoke  nearly  six  hours,  be- 
sides driving  sixty  miles." 

There  is  another  of  Mr.  McAuliffe's  stories 
worth  repeating  here.  "  It  was  just  after  a 
speech  in  one  of  the  rural  districts.  An  old 
Missouri  farmer  had  sat  stolid  and  apparently 
unmoved  in  the  front  row  listening  imper- 
turbably  to  all  that  Folk  had  to  say.  As  he 
rose  to  go  he  stepped  forward  to  the  platform. 
Folk  held  out  his  hand,  but  the  farmer  stood 
irresolute. 

" '  Say,  Mr.  Folk,*  said  he,  *  are  you  a 
Democrat  ? ' 

" 'Yes,'  said  Folk,  'I'm  a  Democrat' 

"  *  Do  you  beheve  in  the  Lord  ? ' 

"  *  Yes,  I  believe  in  the  Lord.' 

"  *  Well,  then,'  drawled  the  farmer,  '  I  guess 
you're  all  right' " 

His  scrap-book  of  political  clippings  to-day 
embraces  sixteen   five  hundred    page   folio 


FOLK  AND  HIS  FOLLOWING  135 

volumes,  tangible  monuments  to  the  man's 
plain  industry  in  carrying  on  his  cause. 

In  the  Jerome  campaign  was  seen  the  po- 
tency of  a  complete  independent  organization 
framed  in  the  interests  of  reform.  In  La  Fol- 
lette's  Wisconsin  fight  a  well  organized  fac- 
tion within  the  party  obtained  control  of  its 
whole  machinery.  The  Missouri  victory  was 
in  an  entirely  different  class.  The  Folk  men 
prevailed,  as  an  active  worker  among  them 
expresses  it,  "by  inert  force  of  numbers." 
There  was  no  question  of  "  discipline  "  about 
it. 

For  a  generation  the  state  of  Missouri  had 
been  governed  by  an  oligarchy  of  politicians, 
as  arrogant  and  autocratic  a  group,  perhaps, 
as  any  part  of  this  country  has  known. 
This  "  crowd "  held  practically  every  office 
in  the  state,  and,  with  almost  negligible  ex- 
ceptions, every  ofifice  holder  from  the  supreme 
court  down  to  the  township  constables  was 
opposed  to  Folk.  These  seven  or  eight 
thousand  officials  were,  to  all  intents  arfd 
purposes,  the  Democratic  party  as  it  had 
existed  in  the  state.  Yet  it  was  that  party's 
nomination  which  Mr.  Folk,  a  lifelong  Dem- 
ocrat, was  seeking.  All  the  shrewdness  and 
political  sagacity  was  against  him,  but  had 
it  been  ten  times  greater  it  would  still  have 


136  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

been  powerless  in  the  face  of  that  unorgan- 
ized uprising  of  1904. 

What  happened  in  one  rural  county  hap- 
pened in  all.  The  farmers  and  small  busi- 
ness men  who  for  years  had  allowed  the 
"  county  seat  politicians  "  to  conduct  the  af- 
fairs of  the  party  whose  ticket  they  voted 
realized  for  the  first  time  how  their  trust  had 
been  betrayed.  They  did  not  form  marching 
clubs  and  carry  banners  around  the  streets. 
But  when  the  day  for  the  local  primaries  ar- 
rived, these  men,  who  had  come  away  rever- 
ently from  Folk's  meetings,  gathered  with 
the  simple  prosaic  purpose  of  voting  for 
Folk  delegates.  In  some  counties  they  over- 
came the  **  old  crowd  "  two  to  one,  sometimes 
by  twelve  to  one.  "Jim"  Butler's  boast, 
already  quoted,  about  the  St.  Louis  precinct 
where  Folk  had  no  votes  at  all,  is  offset  by 
the  story  of  Henry  County  where  one  of  the 
anti-Folk  candidates,  though  a  native  of  the 
county,  got  only  nine  votes. 

Argument  and  abuse  and  chicanery  were 
equally  futile.  Yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
desperate  politicians  adopted  a  kind  of 
strategy  which,  under  the  circumstances, 
merely  helped  on  the  Folk  campaign.  In- 
stead of  picking  out  one  candidate  of  their 
own,  they  had  three,  the  president  of  the  Jef- 


FOLK  AND  HIS  FOLLOWING  137 

ferson  Club  in  St.  Louis,  the  popular  mayor 
of  Kansas  City  and  a  supreme  court  judge 
with  a  Confederate  War  record.  The  inten- 
tion was  to  draw  votes  through  the  individual 
popularity  of  each  of  these  men  and  unite  on 
some  one  after  Folk  was  beaten.  Instead, 
these  tactics  merely  supplied  complete  proof 
that  the  opposition  to  Folk  was  purely  nega- 
tive and  gave  the  opportunity  for  one  of  the 
cleverest  thrusts  of  the  campaign.  Folk  com- 
pared the  method  used  against  him  to  that 
venerable  swindle,  the  "  shell  game."  **  The 
machine  handles  the  shells,"  he  said.  "  When 
I  was  in  Randolph  County  the  three  shells 
were  placed  before  me.  I  picked  up  one  and 
found  nothing.  Another  and  found  nothing. 
Before  picking  up  the  third  I  stooped  down 
and  listened.  I  heard  something  about  the 
*  woody  dells  of  Missouri,  the  limpid  gurgling 
streams,  with  blue-tinted  skies' — and  I  knew 
it  was  Reed.  In  Jefferson  County  I  picked 
up  the  second  shell  and  found  beneath  it  the 
lovely  curly  locks  of  Harry  Hawes.  Under 
the  third  shell  in  Cooper  County,  I  saw  the 
judicial  ermine  of  a  supreme  court  justice, 
Judge  Gantt." 

And  now  comes  one  of  the  most  extraor- 
dinary features  of  the  Folk  movement.  The 
farmers  who  put  him  in  office  did  not  heed 


138  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

the  stock  political  advice  to  the  good  citizen, 
"  always  attend  your  primaries  and  never  re 
lax  your  vigilance."  Already  they  have  very 
largely  suspended  their  political  activity. 
County  conventions  and  state  conventions 
have  resumed  their  old  appearance.  Elected 
delegates  are  staying  at  home  and  sending 
proxies  as  in  the  past  and  they  are  in  the  hands 
of  members  of  the  old  "crowd."  The  familiar 
faces  have  returned.  Yet,  strangely  enough, 
these  conventions  endorse  Folk  as  unani- 
mously as  if  they  were  composed  of  his 
original  partizans.  The  state  convention  of 
1906,  though  the  Folk  men  of  1904  were 
present  in  greatly  decreased  numbers,  ob- 
served the  governor's  wishes  in  every  par- 
ticular. The  situation  was  expressed  shortly 
after  that  convention  in  the  letter  of  a  man 
active  in  Missouri  politics,  "  Even  Folk's  bit- 
terest enemies  fear  that  there  is  something 
back  in  the  woods  that  will  come  out  and  de- 
vour them  if  they  don't  do  the  right  thing." 
One  revelation  like  that  of  the  power  which 
the  plain  citizens  hold  over  the  politicians 
whenever  they  care  to  exercise  it,  ought  to 
last  for  another  generation.  The  old  poli- 
ticians may  be  again  in  the  saddle,  but  it 
will  be  many  a  day  before  they  venture  to 
ride  as  they  did  before  their  tumble. 


VII 

THE  ENFORCEMENT  OF  LAW 

"  fT"^0-DAY  Missouri  is  probably  the 
I  only  state  in  the  Union  without  a 
-■-  dead-letter  law  on  its  statute  book." 
This  was  the  tribute  of  William  Allen 
White,  the  epigrammatic  Kansas  editor,  to 
the  work  of  Governor  Folk.  He  was  paying 
the  highest  possible  tribute  to  an  official  who 
did  not  want  to  reconstitute  society,  who  had 
no  panacea  for  public  ills,  and  who  went  into 
office  with  only  the  briefest  programme  of 
new  measures  which  he  wanted  passed.  Of 
course  this  does  not  mean  that  Mr.  Folk  was 
satisfied  with  the  laws  as  he  found  them.  In 
fact  no  previous  governor  of  Missouri  ever 
did  so  much  to  secure  new  and  good  statutes. 
He  secured  the  repeal  of  the  "breeders'  law" 
which  legalized  race-track  gambling  in  the 
State,  signed  the  first  maximum-rate  bill 
passed  in  Missouri  in  twenty-five  years, 
abolished  the  enormous  fees  of  his  appointee, 
the  St.  Louis  excise  commissioner,  and  placed 
that  official  upon  a  fixed  salary,  forced  the 
passage  of  a  law  extending  the  statute  of 
139 


I40  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

limitations  in  bribery  cases  from  three  to  five 
years,  and  identified  his  name  with  measures 
relating  to  such  other  subjects  as  compulsory 
education,  the  right  of  action  for  the  death  of 
unmarried  persons,  and  the  reform  of  negoti- 
able instruments.  Still,  his  main  achievement 
was  the  vitalizing  of  laws  to  which  the  State 
had  hitherto  given  scant  attention. 

The  anti-pass  law  was  one  of  these.  The 
members  of  the  Legislature  and  the  executive 
officers  of  the  State  had  been  riding  generally 
on  passes  issued  by  the  railroad  companies 
as  they  had  in  Wisconsin  and  probably  a 
majority  of  other  States.  Governor  Folk 
stopped  this.  It  affected  only  a  small  fraction 
of  the  people  of  the  State  in  any  case.  But 
at  almost  the  same  time  he  took  up  the  en- 
forcement of  a  law  which  did  directly  affect  the 
personal  desires  of  some  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  Missourians,  that  which  prohibited 
the  Sunday  sale  of  liquor  in  the  large  cities. 
St.  Louis  is  the  fourth  American  city,  and 
Kansas  City  the  twenty-second.  St.  Louis 
contains  more  Germans  and  children  of 
Germans  than  any  other  American  cities  ex- 
cept New  York,  Chicago,  and  Philadelphia. 

It  has  not  been  easy  to  enforce  the  law ; 
it  has  required  occasional  warnings  that  the 
militia  would  be  ordered  out  if  all  other  means 


THE  ENFORCEMENT  OF  LAW  I4I 

failed.  Yet  the  thing  has  been  accomplished. 
The  laws  against  gambling  and  the  illicit 
sale  of  liquor,  taking  account  of  the  relatively 
wider  inclination  to  violate  them,  have  been 
enforced  about  as  well  as  those  against  arson 
or  murder.  Monday's  newspapers  in  Missouri 
tell  not  of  a  thriving  "  side  door  trade "  or 
open  violations  but  of  occasional  petty  and 
rather  pitiful  attempts  to  get  around  the  law 
in  a  small  way,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Kansas 
City  saloon-keeper  who  was  caught  selling 
beer  in  china  bowls  under  the  name  of  **  soup." 
The  original  cry  that  Folk  was  "  defaming 
the  State  "  was  changed  to  the  cry  that  he  was 
"imposing  blue  laws"  upon  an  unwilling 
people.  From  the  attacks  made  upon  Folk 
both  publicly  and  privately  one  would  have 
supposed  that  he  was  bringing  the  proud  old 
commonwealth  of  Missouri  to  the  verge  of  ruin. 
Yet  the  facts  are  that  since  he  began  his  work 
the  value  of  land  in  the  State  has  increased 
by  one-fifth,  and  the  immigration  from  other 
States  by  one-fourth.  As  for  hurting  the 
cities  to  which  the  "lid"  was  applied,  the 
railroad  companies  are  given  as  authority  for 
the  statement  that  the  Sunday  travel  to  St. 
Louis  and  Kansas  City  increased  by  ten  per 
cent,  since  Sunday  closing  became  a  fact. 
The  last  statement  of  the  prevalence  of  crime 


142  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

in  the  cities  shows  that,  under  a  police 
administration  which  grew  more  rather  than 
less  efficient  in  taking  up  offenders,  the  num- 
ber of  arrests  decreased  in  St.  Louis  from  30,- 
560  in  the  official  year  1904-1905  to  only  26,- 
225  for  1905-1906,  or  fourteen  percent.  That 
was  the  second  record  of  reduction,  the  year 
1 904- 1 905  itself  showing  a  reduction  of  nearly 
fifty  per  cent,  in  arrests  for  assaults  and  com- 
mon disorders  since  1902. 

Thus  there  are  at  least  plausible  grounds 
for  arguing  that,  apart  from  all  moral  aspects 
of  the  case,  reform  has  been  an  excellent  in- 
vestment for  Missouri.  But  whether  that  be 
true  or  not,  it  is  not  the  reason  why  Governor 
Folk  went  so  far  out  of  his  way  to  enforce  a 
presumably  unpopular  law.  His  reason  was 
simply  that  the  people  of  Missouri  who  put 
him  in  office,  and  commissioned  him  to  en- 
force all  the  laws,  had  also,  through  their 
representatives,  enacted  that  particular  law, 
and  the  question  whether  he,  their  chief 
servant,  liked  it  or  not,  had  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  the  case. 

*'  With  an  executive  official,"  he  has  said, 
"  the  question  should  not  be  whether  the  law 
is  a  good  law  or  not,  but  it  is  his  duty  to  en- 
force it  as  he  finds  it.  Those  interested  in 
having  the  law  violated  set  up  the  specious 


THE  ENFORCEMENT  OF  LAW  143 

plea  that  it  interferes  with  personal  liberty. 
It  is  no  more  an  interference  with  personal 
liberty  than  any  law  that  restricts  the  acts  of 
men  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  civilized 
society.  If  one  would  like  to  see  men  whose 
personal  liberty  has  been  interfered  with,  he 
can  go  to  his  state  penitentiary  and  there  find 
them  in  abundance." 

That  pronouncement  agrees  well  with 
Theodore  Roosevelt's  declaration,  when  police 
commissioner  in  New  York  ten  years  before, 
that  "  the  best  way  to  repeal  an  obnoxious 
law  is  to  enforce  it."  Yet  the  New  York 
liquor  laws,  in  regard  to  the  Sunday  closing 
of  the  ordinary  saloon  have  neither  been  re- 
pealed nor  enforced.  Regulations  of  this  kind 
are  the  despair  of  municipal  reformers  every- 
where. Mr.  Jerome,  whose  career  is  compared 
to  that  of  Mr.  Folk  in  so  many  ways,  is  per- 
haps the  leading  exponent  of  the  idea 
that  they  are  substantially  non-enforceable. 
"  There  should  be  two  statute  books,"  he  has 
recently  said.  "  In  one  could  be  incorporated 
those  moral  yearnings  of  the  rural  com- 
munities, while  in  the  other  could  be  placed 
laws  for  human  beings."  When  he  was  first 
a  candidate  for  district  attorney  in  New  York 
he  urged  incessantly  the  crying  need  for  laws 
that  could  be   enforced.     The  police  black- 


144  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

mail  which  had  disgraced  the  city  he  traced 
directly  to  the  fact  that  the  people  did  not 
really  want  their  Sunday  laws,  for  example, 
enforced.  Since  examples  had  occasionally 
to  be  made  of  violators  nevertheless,  the  sale 
of  immunities  was  not  only  easy  but  almost 
inevitable.  Therefore  Mr.  Jerome  favoured 
strongly  the  amendment  of  the  excise  law  so 
as  to  permit  the  sale  of  liquor  on  Sunday  ex- 
cept during  the  hours  of  church  services. 
He  also  favoured  the  outright  repeal  of  the  law 
making  it  a  crime  to  maintain  a  disorderly 
house,  in  order  that  these  places  might  be 
dealt  with  thereafter  under  the  general  law  of 
nuisances.  The  legislature  never  heeded 
either  of  these  suggestions.  As  the  district 
attorney  declared  later,  "  I  am  sore  with  bang- 
ing my  own  head  against  unenforceable  laws." 
Mr.  Jerome's  view  of  the  hopelessness  of 
enforcing  laws  and  ordinances  dealing  with 
dram-selling  and  gambling  and  the  like  is 
very  widely  held.  Beyond  question,  the 
statutes  dealing  with  these  subjects  do  not 
always  represent  what  the  people  who  made 
the  laws  really  want  done.  Nevertheless,  Mr. 
Folk  is  not  alone  to-day  in  the  conviction  that 
bad  and  unpopular  laws  as  well  as  good  and 
popular  ones  ought  to  be  obeyed  and  can  be 
enforced.     For  illuminating  illustrations   of 


THE  ENFORCEMENT  OF  LAW  I45 

this  we  may  take  the  experience  of  Minne- 
apolis with  the  gambling  and  Sunday  laws, 
and  the  campaign  of  Secretary  Hitchcock 
against  the  violators  of  the  Federal  land  laws. 

Minneapolis,  after  the  indictment  of  its 
mayor  in  1902,  had  for  its  temporary  execu- 
tive David  Percy  Jones,  a  "  silk-stocking  " 
alderman.  The  scandals  which  had  disgraced 
the  Ames  administration  had  been  chiefly  in 
connection  with  the  police  department.  The 
toleration  of  practices  and  pursuits  that  the 
law  prohibited  had  produced  perhaps  more 
than  its  usual  demoralizing  effect.  Police 
blackmail  had  become  an  art.  The  vari- 
ous "necessary  evils"  of  a  great  city  had 
been  yielding  generous  profits  to  a  group  of 
high  officials.  When  the  acting  mayor  took 
control  of  affairs,  therefore,  it  was  natural 
enough  for  him  to  attack  public  gambling 
and  the  illicit  sale  of  liquor,  almost  at  the 
start.  But  he  adopted  his  policy  of  repression 
with  openly  expressed  doubts  as  to  its  practi- 
cability as  a  permanent  policy.  As  a  tempo- 
rary official,  filling  out  an  unexpired  term  in 
a  crisis,  he  could  afford  to  enforce  the  un- 
popular laws  ;  for  a  regularly  elected  mayor 
with  a  full  term  ahead  of  him,  Alderman  Jones 
admitted  that  the  case  might  be  different. 

The  interest  of  these  first  views  lies  in  the 


146  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

fact  that  two  years  later  David  Percy  Jones 
was  himself  a  regularly  elected  mayor  with  a 
full  term  ahead  of  him.  He  weighed  the 
situation  carefully,  and  the  result  was  that 
he  adopted  for  a  permanent  policy — so  far  as 
a  single  administration  could  make  it  one — 
the  identical  principle  of  his  months  of  emer- 
gency service.  He  attacked  promptly  the 
evil  of  public  gambling,  and  stopped  it,  after 
a  few  months  of  vigilant  work,  driving  out  of 
the  city  one  gambling  house  which  had  done 
business  there  for  between  fifteen  and  twenty 
years. 

Then  he  gave  attention  to  the  saloons. 
The  law  forbade  Sunday  sales,  but,  as  in 
most  western  cities,  the  saloons  had  been 
keeping  open  every  day  of  the  week.  Mayor 
Jones  did  not  content  himself  with  trying  to 
keep  the  individual  patrolmen  from  taking 
money  for  failure  to  see  the  violations  of  law 
all  about  him.  He  ordered  the  saloons  closed 
and  he  expressed  his  determination  in  a  docu- 
ment so  different  from  the  stereotyped  in- 
junction for  the  force  to  "  enforce  all  the  laws  " 
that  it  deserves  quoting  here  in  its  main 
clauses : 

"James  G.  Doyle  ^  Superintendent  of  Police^ 
"  City  of  Minneapolis. 

**  You  are  hereby  ordered  to  give  definite 


THE  ENFORCEMENT  OF  LAW  147 

instructions  to  the  entire  police  force  that  all 
saloons  or  bars  where  liquor  is  licensed  to  be 
sold  are  to  be  closed  and  kept  closed — front, 
rear  and  side — upon  all  Sundays,  beginning 
Sunday,  November  5,  1905,  from  the  hour  of 
midnight  on  Saturday  until  Monday  morn- 
ing. This  order  must  be  strictly  and  im- 
partially carried  out  and  I  shall  hold  every 
member  of  the  police  department,  from  top 
to  bottom,  responsible  for  its  execution." 

"  An  ordinance  which  was  reenacted  with 
amendments  designed  to  make  it  more  ef- 
fective as  late  as  1894,"  he  said,  "cannot  be 
regarded  as  either  a  blue  law  or  a  dead  let- 
ter." 

The  saloons  were  closed,  but  the  most  sur- 
prising development  was  still  to  follow.  The 
mayor  encountered  the  opposition  and  the 
threats  that  he  had  anticipated.  His  friends 
told  him,  as  political  friends  do,  that  although 
the  enforcement  of  law  was  all  very  well  in 
the  abstract,  it  would  mean  political  annihila- 
tion to  deprive  Minneapolis  of  its  Sunday 
potations.  But  support  began  to  come  from 
unexpected  quarters.  It  is  one  of  the  com- 
monest cries  against  our  excise  laws  that 
their  strict  enforcement  closes  the  "poor 
man's  club."  while  the  rich  man  can  take  his 
cocktail  with  impunity.     It  lost  part  of  its 


148  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

Sting  in  Minneapolis  when  three  of  the  lead- 
ing clubs  of  the  city,  the  Minneapolis,  Com- 
mercial and  Roosevelt  clubs,  following  the 
mayor's  action,  voluntarily  closed  their  own 
buffets,  although  they  sold  liquor  on  a  differ- 
ent basis  from  the  licensed  saloons,  and  were 
not  legally  amenable  to  the  newly  enforced 
statutes. 

Then  the  poor  man  himself  did  not  always 
back  up  the  saloon-keepers'  position.  The 
Trades  and  Labour  Council  of  Minneapolis  is 
a  federated  body  composed  of  delegates  repre- 
senting all  the  labour  organizations  of  the  city. 
At  a  meeting  of  that  organization  a  delegate 
from  the  cigar  makers  introduced  a  resolu- 
tion, asking  the  mayor  to  modify  his  order  and 
permit  the  general  sale  of  liquor  during  half 
the  hours  of  every  Sunday.  Yet  these  work- 
ing men  voted  approximately  four  hundred  to 
fifteen  against  the  motion.  Mayor  Jones 
even  reported  in  a  public  address  recently  a 
conversation  with  the  manager  of  the  largest 
local  brewing  company  in  which  that  naturally 
interested  man  declared  that  he  was  satisfied 
the  mayor's  action  was  the  best  thing  for  the 
community  and  in  the  end  "  would  not  be  a 
bad  thing  for  the  liquor  interest." 

As  the  people  of  our  cities  regard,  or  are 
supposed  to  regard,  the  laws  restricting  the 


THE  ENFORCEMENT  OF  LAW  149 

liquor  traffic,  so  beyond  all  question,  did  the 
people  of  the  far  western  states  long  regard 
the  land  laws.  They  were  looked  upon  as 
a  species  of  Federal  blue  laws  which  existed 
to  be  circumvented.  An  area  large  enough 
to  make  five  states  as  large  as  New  York, 
as  the  total  has  been  computed,  was  sys- 
tematically stolen  from  the  public  domain 
within  fifteen  years,  these  operations  merely 
succeeding  the  dubious  acquisition  of  enor- 
mous holdings  in  the  now  denuded  forest 
lands  of  the  Middle  West  and  apparently  to 
be  followed  by  equal  inroads  upon  the  re- 
maining lands  in  the  South.  Yet  there  ex- 
isted no  strong  public  sentiment  against 
depredations  of  these  sorts.  They  offered 
a  common  way  of  making  money  ;  it  was 
considered  a  legitimate  way  enough. 

Nor  is  it  fair  to  consider  the  land  thieves 
of  the  West  as  if  they  were  violators  of  en- 
lightened, just  and  carefully  drawn  statutes. 
None  of  these  terms  applied  to  the  old  land 
laws.  President  Roosevelt's  commission 
reported  in  favour  of  repealing  or  modifying 
nearly  all  of  them  fundamentally.  The  laws 
were  bad  partly  because  they  facilitated 
various  forms  of  fraud  upon  the  govern- 
ment, but  also  because  they  did  not  meet 
the  requirements  of  the  legitimate  and  nee- 


I50  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

essary  use  of  tWe  land.  When  it  was  stated 
on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  that  nowhere  in 
the  arid  regions  could  a  man  support  him- 
self from  the  proceeds  of  a  three  hundred 
and  sixty  acre  tract,  it  showed  not  only  that 
the  claims  of  that  size  continually  being 
filed  under  the  desert  land  act  could  not  be 
made  in  good  faith,  but  also  that  the  act  in 
question  failed  absolutely  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  actual  settler.  It  was  the  same  with 
the  timber  and  stone  act.  No  man  could 
acquire  under  that  law  a  tract  of  forest  large 
enough  to  warrant  him  in  building  a  saw- 
mill. 

Thus  there  could  be  made  on  every  side  a 
highly  plausible  plea  for  the  evasion  of  the 
law :  It  would  be  utterly  impossible  to  pro- 
duce lumber  if  the  lumbermen  conformed 
strictly  to  the  terms  of  the  law  which  was 
supposed  to  regulate  the  holding  of  timber 
lands.  It  would  be  utterly  impossible  to 
raise  range  cattle  if  the  cattlemen  conformed 
strictly  to  the  terms  of  the  law  which  was 
supposed  to  regulate  the  holding  of  grazing 
lands.  Yet  these  industries  themselves  were 
not  outlawed.  They  were  acknowledged  to 
be  sources  of  national  pride.  So  the  cattle- 
men and  the  lumbermen  went  ahead  and 
carried  on  their  business  regardless  of  what 


THE  ENFORCEMENT  OF  LAW  151 

the  Statute  might  or  might  not  provide. 
Elaborate  and  extensive  systems  of  illegal 
homesteading,  illegal  fencing  and  the  like 
were  devised. 

It  had  been  written  of  the  timberland 
manipulators  that  "  the  land  office  receipt 
for  claim  fees  (upon  land  taken  up  by  agents 
of  large  *  interests ')  is  a  sort  of  travelling 
card  of  a  new  and  close  fraternity ;  it  iden- 
tifies the  bearer  in  the  case  of  railway  acci- 
dents and  entitles  him  to  brotherly  care  or 
burial ;  it  earns  his  discharge  from  police 
court  if  he  happens  to  be  charged  with  hav- 
ing *  no  visible  means  of  support '  ;  it  gives 
him  place  and  standing  at  once  when  he 
moves  to  a  new  town.  An  old  soldier's 
honourable  discharge  isn't  to  be  compared 
with  it  for  efficiency."  Naturally,  having 
never  tried  to  observe  the  law  nor  regarded 
its  observance  as  a  possible  alternative  policy, 
these  men's  operations  grew  more  daring 
and  more  extensive.  But  the  excuse  at 
the  bottom  throughout  was  that  the  laws 
themselves  made  no  proper  provision  for  the 
carrying  on  of  legitimate  business.  Of- 
fenses against  them  could  be  nothing  more 
than  "  technical." 

Yet  from  the  time  when  definite  informa- 
tion— which  ought  to  have  been  obtained  a 


152  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

generation  ago,  —  including  the  confession 
of  a  disgruntled  member  of  a  coterie  of 
land  thieves,  came  to  the  Interior  Depart- 
ment, these  "  technical  offenses  "  have  been 
followed  up  in  a  series  of  prosecutions  which 
certainly  has  not  a  parallel  in  our  history. 
Secretary  Hitchcock  and  President  Roose- 
velt, who  gave  unswerving  support  to  his 
subordinate,  have  followed  down  the  trails 
of  evidence  regardless  of  where  they  led. 
A  senator  and  both  the  representatives  from 
Oregon,  one  of  the  latter  a  former  chief  of 
the  Land  Office  were  among  those  prosecuted. 
As  Mr.  Hitchcock  himself  summarized  his 
work: 

"  These  investigations  involved  the  arrest, 
indictment  and  conviction  of  more  than  six 
hundred  individuals  in  more  than  twenty 
states  and  territories,  including  among  the 
number  some  who  had  hitherto  stood  high  in 
the  communities  in  which  they  resided,  num- 
bering among  them  representative  officials  of 
high  rank,  United  States  attorneys,  registers 
and  receivers,  commissioners,  and  a  horde  of 
allies  who  were  found  guilty  of  forgery,  per- 
jury and  numerous  other  crimes  against 
which  the  law,  even  with  its  many  loop- 
holes, makes  specific  provision." 

These  six  hundred  prosecutions  represent 


THE  ENFORCEMENT  OF  LAW  1 53 

the  most  conspicuous  effort  in  the  national 
field  to  enforce  a  law  or  a  set  of  laws,  not  be- 
cause the  executive  ofBcer  thinks  they  are 
good  laws,  in  all  details,  but  because  they  are 
the  laws.  The  very  officials  who  have  in- 
itiated these  relentless  prosecutions  have 
worked  their  utmost  to  liberalize  the  laws  in 
favour  of  the  business  interests  that  have 
been  caught  in  the  net.  For  example,  there 
has  been  urged  upon  Congress  a  plan  for 
selling  the  timber  on  large  tracts  without  dis- 
posing of  the  land  itself,  a  plan  which  would 
establish  lumbering  on  a  large  and  profitable 
scale  without  "  necessitating  "  bogus  entries 
or  official  connivance  in  the  evasion  of  the 
law. 

Even  downright  bribery  was  characterized 
by  the  defense  in  certain  of  Mr.  Folk's 
prosecutions  as  merely  a  "conventional 
crime."  It  was  a  plea  to  which  the  juries 
gave  scant  consideration.  But  there  ought 
not  to  be  on  the  statute  books  any  prohibi- 
tion deserving  of  that  name.  Legislators 
should  have  enough  moral  courage  to  em- 
body their  real  beliefs  in  the  laws  they  pass. 
There  exists,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  an 
honest  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  course 
to  be  pursued  by  an  official  charged  with 
enforcing  laws  which  accord  with  neither  his 


154  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

own  beliefs  nor  those  of  the  community  he 
serves.  Both  parties  to  this  controversy 
would  unite  in  urging  the  need  for  revised 
enactments  that  do  represent  without  evasion 
and  without  hypocrisy,  the  sober  judgment 
of  the  people. 


Photograph  hy  Marceau. 


JOHN  WEAVER 

Born  in  England,  1862. 

Moved  to  Philadelphia,  1870, 

Educated  Public  Schools, 

Worked  as  office  boy  and  clerk  in  depxitment  store. 

Studied  law  in  night  course. 

Admitted  to  bar,  1891. 

Elected  District  Attorney  as  Republican,  1901, 

Elected  Mayor  of  Philadelphia,  1903. 

"  The  great  victories  recently  won  by  the  forces  of  re- 
form in  the  large  cities,  are  only  so  many  clarion  calls  to 
higher  and  nobler  duty — to  closer  and  more  vital  conflict 
with  the  enetnies  of  good  government." 


VIII 

PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION 

FOLK'S  prosecutions  in  Missouri  were 
started  by  a  newspaper  item.  The 
Philadelphia  revolution  may  be  said, 
in  somewhat  the  same  sense,  to  have  begun 
with  a  stock  quotation.  In  the  autumn  of 
1904  observers  of  the  Philadelphia  market 
began  to  note  a  curious  movement  in  the 
stock  of  the  United  Gas  Improvement  Com- 
pany. Not  only  was  the  price  rising  from 
$go  to  $126  per  share,  but  the  volume  of 
daily  transactions  increased  inexplicably. 
Ordinarily  a  day's  total  sales  would  include 
only  a  few  hundred  shares.  Blocks  of  five 
thousand  shares  or  more  now  began  to  ap- 
pear at  intervals  in  the  report  of  sales.  There 
was  evidently  something  going  on  beneath 
the  surface. 

The  United  Gas  Improvement  Company  is 
a  great  corporation  operating  lighting  plants 
in  a  number  of  cities  in  various  parts  of  the 
United  States.  The  Philadelphia  gas  works, 
owned  by  the  city,  had  been  leased  to  it  in 
155 


156  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

1897  after  the  city  authorities  themselves, 
with  dehberate  purpose,  as  it  is  charged,  had 
allowed  the  plant  sadly  to  deteriorate.  The 
original  lease  had  been  only  one  of  a  series 
of  more  or  less  questionable  measures  put 
through  under  the  auspices  of  the  all  but 
omnipotent  local  Republican  organization. 

The  prospect  of  an  extension  of  the  gas 
lease  was  obviously  one  of  the  things  which 
would  explain  the  rapid  rise  of  "  U.  G.  I." 
stock.  The  politicians  and  the  financiers 
agreed,  however,  in  denying  that  anything  of 
the  sort  was  contemplated  until  on  the  fifth 
day  of  April,  1905,  the  financial  editor  of  the 
North  American  ventured  to  print  the  story 
that  the  gas  plant  was  to  be  leased  for  an  exx 
tended  term.  Although  the  exact  facts  were 
not  known  until  nearly  two  weeks  later,  the 
paper  at  once  characterized  the  proposal  as  a 
"  steal." 

Just  what  the  organization  proposed  to  do 
became  common  property  before  the  first  in- 
timation of  a  lease  was  made  officially.  Nev- 
ertheless, councils  solemnly  went  through  the 
motions  of  driving  a  bargain  in  behalf  of  the 
city.  Philadelphia,  like  every  other  com- 
munity large  or  small  in  this  country  needed 
all  the  ready  money  obtainable.  This  was 
to  be  the  "  gang's  "  pretext     Charles  Seger, 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        I57 

the  leader,  practically  the  floor  dictator  of 
councils  introduced  a  resolution  on  May  20th 
which  started  with  abundant  "  whereases  " 
that  funds  were  needed  for  schools,  and  grade 
crossings,  and  sewers,  and  all  manner  of 
other  improvements,  and  requested  the 
finance  committee  of  councils  to  "  confer " 
with  the  United  Gas  Improvement  Company 
and  see  if  its  annual  payments  for  the  coming 
years  could  be  "anticipated."  The  com- 
mittee gravely  "conferred"  as  ordered,  and 
of  course,  reported  the  identical  plan  that 
had  been  conceived  in  secret  months  before, 
and  actually  printed  in  the  newspapers  nearly 
a  week  before. 

If  all  other  records  were  destroyed,  the 
future  historian  from  a  copy  of  that  gas  lease 
ordinance  alone  would  be  almost  able  to  re- 
construct the  story  of  the  ring  that  ruled 
Philadelphia  at  the  opening  of  the  twentieth 
century,  in  all  its  arrogance,  its  greed,  its 
swollen  self-confidence,  its  cool  disregard  of 
the  city's  interests.  It  was  the  first  great 
piece  of  good  fortune  that,  at  the  very  time 
when  the  people  of  Philadelphia  were  in- 
wardly restless  under  their  caricature  of  self- 
government,  the  ruling  organization  had  be- 
come so  bold  and  shameless  as  to  put  forward 
a  job  that  was  susceptible  of  no  reasonable 


158  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

defense,  not  even  the  most  specious.  The 
new  lease  was  to  run  for  seventy-five  years, 
while  the  old  had  twenty-two  to  run ;  the  city 
was  to  surrender  for  ^25,000,000  in  cash,  all 
claim  to  its  share  of  earnings  which  for  the 
same  period  were  estimated  at  fully  $75,- 
000,000 ;  it  relinquished  likewise  its  option 
to  resume  control  of  the  gas  works  in  1907 ; 
while  to  crown  all,  the  company  which  would 
have  to  supply  seventy-five  cent  gas  by  191 8 
under  the  old  lease  was  required  to  make  no 
reduction  in  the  price  of  gas  at  all  until  1928, 
and  could  maintain  a  ninety  cent  rate  until 
the  expiration  of  the  lease  in  1980.  Yet,  in- 
defensible as  these  terms  were,  there  was  not 
one  visible  element  in  the  situation  to  make 
an  intelligent  and  level-headed  Philadelphian 
doubt  that  the  lease  would  go  through  ex- 
actly as  planned.  John  C.  Winston,  chair- 
man of  the  Committee  of  Seventy  did  write  to 
ask  a  postponement  long  enough  to  secure  a 
competitive  bid.  But  only  four  years  before 
Mayor  Ashbridge  had  signed  away  street 
railway  franchises  without  a  penny  of  com- 
pensation, although  a  two  and  one  half  mil- 
lion dollar  offer  for  the  same  rights  was  offered 
him  in  an  envelope  which  he  refused  to  open. 
There  was  no  particular  reason  to  expect 
more  favourable  results  now.     Though  the 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        1 59 

mayor  was  known  to  be  of  very  different 
fibre,  councils  were  still  in  the  old  hands. 

The  flagrant  character  of  the  lease  has 
been  called  the  first  fortunate  circumstance  for 
Philadelphia.  The  second  was  the  existence 
within  the  city  of  a  body  of  men  who  had 
grown  accustomed  to  fighting  their  hardest 
against  corruption,  even  when  in  the  full  and 
constant  expectation  of  being  beaten.  This 
was  the  contribution  of  the  Philadelphia 
Municipal  League  which,  as  fate  would  have 
it,  had  formally  dissolved  just  five  months  be- 
fore the  gas  ordinance  was  introduced.  This 
league  had  been  organized  in  1 891,  it  had 
done  work  of  all  kinds  in  the  city's  interests, 
issued  reports  on  candidates  and  measures, 
retained  council  to  aid  in  the  running  down 
of  election  and  other  frauds,  worked  hard  for 
ballot  reform  and  civil  service  reform,  fought 
hard  against  the  original  gas  lease,  and  ham- 
mered away  on  the  question  of  franchises  in 
general.  It  was  instrumental  in  calling  the 
first  of  the  national  conferences  now  held  an- 
nually "  for  good  city  government."  As  a 
recognized  political  party  it  had  participated 
in  twenty  different  elections.  But  while  its 
vote  had  run  as  high  as  58,000  in  a  total  of 
275,000,  and  it  had  occasionally  elected  some 
of  its  candidates,  its  history  as  a  whole  was 


l6o  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

simply  the  record  of  continuous  struggle 
against  odds  that  seemed  hopeless.  Its  real 
service  had  been  in  the  training  up  of  men 
who  fought  for  the  right  in  municipal  affairs 
because  it  was  the  right  If  they  had  been 
men  who  saw  good  only  in  success  they 
would  never  have  stayed  in  the  Municipal 
Leagfue.  The  organization  itself  had  gone 
quietly  out  of  existence,  and  yet  almost  every 
man  connected  with  the  finally  successful  up- 
rising had  had  his  training  in  that  coura- 
geous minority  which  had  followed  so  many 
forlorn  hopes. 

After  the  battie  of  1905  was  well  under 
way  a  dinner  was  given  by  a  company  of 
old  Municipal  League  members  to  one  of 
their  number,  and  the  toast  "To  the  Old 
Municipal  League  "  was  linked  with  the  text, 
"  Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground 
and  die  it  abideth  not,  but  if  it  die  it  bringeth 
forth  much  fruit."  That  embodied  perfectly 
the  mission  of  the  League.  One  of  the  last 
acts  of  its  existence  had  been  the  calling  of  a 
public  meeting  to  provide  some  method  for 
carrying  on  the  work  to  redeem  the  city. 
The  result  of  this  meeting  was  the  formation 
of  the  Committee  of  Seventy,  and  this  Com- 
mittee in  turn  organized  the  City  Party, 
destined  to  be  the  agent  through  which  the 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        l6l 

people  expressed  their  wrath  against  the 
machine.  Thus  the  most  successful  third 
party  experiment  known  in  this  country 
grew  directly  out  of  the  ideals  of  the  older 
organization. 

At  the  next  point  of  the  narrative  two  of 
these  Municipal  League  men  figure.  The 
lease  ordinance  was  received  by  councils  in 
special  session  on  a  Thursday.  It  was  sched- 
uled to  pass  a  week  later.  On  Saturday 
evening  Albert  E.  Turner,  who  had  made  the 
first  newspaper  disclosure  of  the  plan,  and 
Clarence  L.  Harper,  president  of  a  local  trust 
company,  on  their  own  initiative,  hired  the 
largest  hall  in  Philadelphia,  the  Academy  of 
Music,  for  a  mass-meeting  on  the  following 
Wednesday.  But  some  one  had  to  call  the 
meeting.  The  two  men  spent  an  entire  even- 
ing at  the]||telephone  and  by  ten  o'clock  had 
secured  permission  to  use  the  names  of 
twenty-six  men  of  prominence  as  signers  to  a 
call  for  a  meeting  in  protest  against  the  "  dis- 
posal "  of  the  gas  works.  Several  of  them, 
to  their  credit  be  it  said,  were  stockholders 
in  the  Gas  Improvement  Company.  The 
call  was  published  in  the  Sunday  papers  the 
next  morning.  Before  the  date  of  the  meet- 
ing, councils,  anxious  probably  to  put  alter- 
native bidders  "  in  a  hole,"  had  consented  to 


l62  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

a  moderate  postponement.  More  important, 
Mayor  Weaver  had  written  to  be  read  at  the 
meeting  a  letter  stating  that  he  would  veto 
the  gas  lease  if  it  were  sent  to  him  for  signa- 
ture. That  did  not  mean  a  defeat  for  the 
lease,  however.  It  required  a  two-thirds  vote 
to  pass  an  ordinance  over  the  mayor's  veto. 
It  is  a  gross  understatement  to  say  that  the 
organization  counted  on  nine-tenths.  On 
the  very  day  of  the  original  passage  of  the 
gas  lease,  as  it  happened,  councils  were  also 
to  pass  over  the  mayor's  veto  perpetual 
franchises  for  trolley  lines  over  one  hundred 
and  ten  miles  of  streets.  But  this  letter  of 
Weaver's  marked  the  first  formal  appearance 
in  the  gas  lease  fight  of  the  man  whose  aid 
was  ultimately  to  bring  about  a  victory  of 
vastly  larger  scope  than  the  most  sanguine 
then  anticipated. 

The  meeting  of  May  3d — called  as  it  was 
on  a  sudden  impulse — was  the  real  starting- 
point  of  the  crusade  to  follow.  It  was  styled 
a  "town  meeting"  and  its  attendance  was 
beyond  expectations.  The  speakers  included 
some  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  Phila- 
delphia. The  famous  Committee  of  Nine 
which  thenceforward  conducted  the  fight 
against  the  gas  lease  was  appointed  as  a  re- 
sult of  that  meeting.     Volunteers  appeared 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        1 63 

there  from  all  classes  in  the  city.  But  what 
did  more  than  anything  else  to  put  heart  into 
the  new  movement  was  the  sudden  return 
from  Hot  Springs  of  Israel  W.  Durham,  the 
machine  leader,  to  take  command  of  the  situ- 
ation in  person,  and  the  sudden  drop  of  ten 
dollars  in  the  stock  of  the  Gas  Improvement 
Company.  Durham  and  his  friends  called 
the  protest  against  the  gas  lease  a  "  nine 
days*  wonder  "  which  would  be  over  and  for- 
gotten in  ten  days.  Yet  these  symptoms 
showed  unmistakably  that,  whatever  its  mem- 
bers might  say,  the  gang  was  inwardly  dis- 
quieted. Of  course  the  original  programme 
was  carried  through.  The  lease  was  passed 
after  a  responsible  banking  firm  had  put  in 
a  rival  bid  offering  the  same  terms  as  the 
U.  G.  I.  Company  with  profit  sharing  for  the 
city  to  boot,  and  a  newspaper  offer  had  been 
made  to  relieve  the  city's  supposed  temporary 
distress  by  special  loans  of  fifteen  millions.  It 
was  passed,  moreover,  after  a  "  fire  and  brim- 
stone "  hearing,  and  in  the  presence  of  a  gal- 
lery full  of  excited  citizens  who  shouted 
"  robber  "  and  "  thief "  and  "  hang  'em  "  and 
shook  their  fists  at  the  councilmen.  The 
situation  was  undeniably  unpleasant,  but  that 
it  was  anything  more  the  organization  saw  no 
reason  to  believe.    Hard  words  would  break 


l64^  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

no  more  bones  in  Philadelphia  than  elsewhere. 
The  "insiders"  had  bought  U.  G.  I.  stock 
or  were  having  it  carried  for  them  at  ninety 
to  one  hundred  and  twenty  dollars  a  share. 
They  had  the  "tip"  to  sell  at  $135  or  more. 
In  that  difference  there  was  balm  for  even 
pretty  badly  wounded  feelings.  They  were 
waiting  for  the  disturbance  to  die  down  as 
other  disturbances  had  died  down,  when 
something  happened  that  had  never  happened 
before  at  any  of  Philadelphia's  futile  uprisings. 
Early  on  the  morning  of  May  23  d,  Mayor 
Weaver  announced  that  he  had  removed  his 
director  of  Public  Works,  Peter  E.  Cos- 
tello  and  his  director  of  Public  Safety,  David 
J.  Smyth.  These  two  officials  controlled 
between  them,  many  thousand  appointments 
besides  all  the  city  contracts.  It  was  through 
them  that  the  machine  maintained  its  grip 
upon  the  city.  Durham  and  his  "  crowd  " 
cared  relatively  little  who  might  be  mayor, 
so  long  as  they  kept  their  friends  in  these 
directorships.  Their  summary  removal  was 
the  most  dramatic  and  forcible  notification 
imaginable  that  the  mayor  had  broken  defi- 
nitely and  finally  with  the  Republican  organ- 
ization. From  that  moment  the  mayor  be- 
came the  central  figure  of  the  rapidly  mov- 
ing events  in  the  city. 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        165 

John  Weaver,  although  he  is  known  to  the 
country  now  as  the  victor  in  the  shortest  and 
most  decisive  onslaught  against  a  powerful 
ring  in  the  records  of  American  politics,  is 
nevertheless  naturally  the  easy-going  mem- 
ber of  the  group  of  men  with  whom  this 
account  deals.  He  is  the  kind  of  man  you 
would  expect  to  find  smoothing  out  difficul- 
ties, allaying  resentments,  compromising 
quarrels,  speaking  at  congratulatory  meet- 
ings instead  of  conducting  a  war  without 
quarter.  The  truth  is  that  when  he  was 
made  mayor  of  Philadelphia,  Weaver  did 
for  a  long  time  try  to  run  his  office  on  those 
very  principles.  He  was  the  last  man  to 
pick  a  quarrel,  and  sought,  with  the  best 
possible  intentions,  to  keep  on  good  terms 
with  everybody,  to  reconcile  irreconcilable 
positions.  He  is  the  perfect  type  of  the 
peace-loving  citizen  who,  after  making  every 
sacrifice  possible  to  avoid  trouble,  is  con- 
fronted by  a  situation  where  there  is  nothing 
for  him  to  do  but  fight,  and  then  commands 
instant  admiration  by  the  display  of  his 
latent  powers  in  that  direction. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Philadelphia  ought  to 
have  been  better  prepared  than  it  was  for 
Weaver's  manifestation  of  determination 
and  resource.    There  were  events  in  his  ad- 


1 66  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

ministration  of  the  district  attorney's  office 
that  really  foreshadowed  his  conduct  in  this 
crisis.  He  had  failed  to  secure  a  conviction 
in  a  particularly  flagrant  case  of  ballot-box 
stuffing.  That  proceeding  taught  him  some 
of  the  methods  at  the  command  of  the  sin- 
ister influences  in  Philadelphia.  When,  just 
before  the  expiration  of  his  term  he  had  to 
prosecute  certain  school  directors  on  the 
charge  of  selling  appointments,  he  had 
guarded  his  juries,  issued  private  warnings 
in  the  proper  directions,  and,  what  was  a 
very  wonderful  thing  then  in  Philadelphia, 
had  actually  secured  convictions. 

But  the  fact  that  Weaver  knew  how  to  get 
what  he  was  after,  once  his  eyes  were 
opened,  did  not  make  him  an  independent. 
He  was  an  exceptionally  strong  partisan  in  a 
city  where  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
other  strong  partisans  had  for  years  been 
condoning  the  misdeeds  of  "  a  corrupt  and 
criminal  combination  masquerading  as  Re- 
publicans "  as  Elihu  Root  described  the  Phil- 
adelphia "  gang."  As  such  a  partisan,  cer- 
tain to  put  up  a  creditable  appearance,  but  un- 
likely to  make  serious  trouble  for  the  men  who 
put  him  in  office,  Durham  and  his  associates 
had  picked  Weaver  out  for  the  mayoralty. 
^        Of  all  public  officials  in  the  United  States, 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        167 

it  might  fairly  have  been  said  in  the  spring 
of  1905  that  the  plight  of  Mayor  Weaver 
was  the  most  pitiable.  In  his  review  of  mu- 
nicipal developments  throughout  the  coun- 
try before  the  conference  for  good  city  gov- 
ernment in  1904,  Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff 
said  of  Mayor  Weaver  that  he  "confers 
with  those  who  for  years  have  been  working 
for  the  city's  welfare.  This  is  a  new  experi- 
ence." But  a  half-course  did  not  satisfy 
the  reformers,  while  the  organization  treated 
Weaver  with  utter  contempt.  He  set  aside 
an  hour  every  day  for  interviews  with  coun- 
cilmen,  and  they  practically  ignored  him. 
Once  when  he  went  away  on  a  vacation  he 
insisted  and  received  the  promise  beforehand 
that  nothing  should  be  done  in  his  absence. 
He  returned  to  find  that  seventeen  ordi- 
nances had  been  put  through  without  consult- 
ing him.  The  man  was  absolutely  at  his  wits' 
ends.  One  of  his  four  directors,  Frederick 
J.  Shoyer,  Director  of  Supplies,  a  much  less 
important  official  than  the  directors  of  Public 
Safety  and  Public  Works,  had  urged  the 
mayor  almost  a  year  before  to  break  with 
the  machine.  He  has  framed  to-day  in  his 
office  a  four-word  note  which  came  to  him 
in  the  summer  of  1904.  "  Perhaps  you  are 
right.    J.  W." 


l68  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

But  Weaver  had  not  acted  at  once.  "  The 
Lord  stayed  my  hand,"  he  once  said  of  his 
wonderfully  well-chosen  time  for  striking. 
He  continued  to  put  up  with  criticism  from 
the  one  side  and  snubbing  from  the  other. 
But  it  is  said  that  what  stung  him  most  of 
all  was  the  action  of  the  ministers  of  the 
city  when  in  March  they  appointed  an  hour 
for  solemn  prayer  in  his  behalf.  He  is  a 
strongly  religious  man,  a  Bible-class  teacher 
for  many  years  in  the  Baptist  Temple,  and 
the  thought  that  under  him  the  city  was  in 
a  plight  where  there  was  no  recourse  but 
prayer  was  more  than  he  could  endure. 
When  reporters  hurried  over  to  the  City  Hall 
with  the  irreverent  question,  "  How  does  it 
feel  to  be  prayed  for?"  he  could  not,  like 
some  of  his  subordinates,  turn  off  a  light 
answer.  The  thing  had  shaken  him  pro- 
foundly. 

All  the  Methodist  ministers  of  the  city,  one 
hundred  and  twenty  in  all,  had  marched  to 
the  City  Hall  the  day  before  his  new  Decla- 
ration of  Independence,  and  the  mayor  had 
told  them  that  he  would  "  do  his  utmost." 
They  did  not  know,  [however,  that  Weaver 
had  been  definitely  threatened  with  impeach- 
ment only  the  day  before.  Presents  had 
been  sent  to  his  house  months  previously 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        1 69 

by  men  secretly  interested  in  city  contracts 
as  well  as  ring  politicians,  and  the  accept- 
ance of  these  was  to  have  been  made  the 
basis  of  formal  charges  from  the  very 
interests  which  had  originally  proffered 
them.  Councils  which  were  prepared  to  pass 
ordinances  whether  they  were  in  the  city's 
interest  or  not,  were  not  likely  to  have 
scruples  about  impeaching  an  inconvenient 
official  whether  he  were  guilty  or  not  guilty. 
The  threat  was  not  an  idle  one.  There  was 
every  reason  to  suppose  the  machine  could 
execute  it. 

In  this  latest  trouble,  Weaver  summoned 
Director  Shoyer,  to  whom  he  had  sent  the 
"  Perhaps  you  are  right "  message.  Shoyer 
was,  like  himself,  an  old  Bible-class  teacher. 
He  opened  the  Bible  to  the  Twenty-seventh 
Psalm :  "  When  the  wicked,  even  mine 
enemies  and  my  foes,  came  upon  me  to 
eat  up  my  flesh,  they  stumbled  and  fell. 
Though  a  host  shall  encamp  against  me,  my 
heart  shall  not  fear.  .  .  .  For  in  the 
time  of  trouble  He  shall  hide  me  in  His 
pavilion  ;  in  the  secret  of  His  tabernacle  shall 
He  hide  me  ;  He  shall  set  me  up  upon  a  rock. 
And  now  shall  mine  head  be  lifted  up  above 
mine  enemies  round  about  me.  Teach  me 
Thy  way,  O  Lord,  and  lead  me  in  a  plain 


lyo  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

path  because  of  mine  enemies.  Deliver  me 
not  over  unto  the  will  of  mine  enemies  :  for 
false  witnesses  are  risen  up  against  me,  and 
such  as  breathe  out  cruelty." 

Weaver  closed  the  book  and  said  simply, 
"  Send  for  Judge  Gordon."  Judge  James  Gay 
Gordon  was  his  personal  counsel  through  all 
the  events  that  followed.  Two  days  later 
the  mayor  took  the  final  step  of  removing 
the  directors. 

From  his  pinnacle  of  unpopularity,  Mayor 
Weaver  stepped  in  one  day  to  find  himself 
the  hero  and  the  hope  of  every  decent  Phila- 
delphian.  When  he  appeared  on  the  street 
the  day  after  the  removal,  Broad  Street  was 
filled  from  curb  to  curb  with  cheering  men 
who  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  move  one 
way  or  another.  He  had  actually  to  give  up 
going  out  for  his  noon  luncheon  for  a  while. 
For  a  surprisingly  long  time — at  least  a 
month — he  could  not  show  himself  in  any 
public  place  without  being  cheered.  The 
change  was  enough  to  make  any  man's 
senses  reel.  The  indiscretions  of  the  Spanish 
War  heroes  are  horrible  examples  of  the  re- 
sults that  sometimes  attend  such  sudden 
popularity.  Yet  Weaver  seems  to  have  come 
through  his  experience  unspoiled.  There  is 
no  better  evidence  than  the  fact  that  on  a 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        171 

special  occasion  in  1906  when  he  had  been 
invited  to  speak  at  a  banquet  in  another  city, 
had  prepared  a  speech,  and  given  up  nearly 
twenty-four  hours  to  the  occasion  on  which 
he  was  to  deliver  it,  he  discarded  that  careful 
address  entirely  and  spoke  for  three  minutes 
impromptu,  because  he  felt  the  hour  was  too 
late  for  him  to  take  up  time.  When  the  new 
City  Club  of  Philadelphia  was  dedicated — on 
the  anniversary  of  the  original  "  town  meet- 
ing"— Weaver's  entrance  into  the  hall  was 
the  signal  for  prolonged  cheering.  A  friend 
who  happened  to  be  on  the  floor  below  and 
heard  the  tumult  suggested  the  next  day 
that  the  mayor  must  have  been  pleased  by 
the  demonstration.  "  Oh,"  was  the  reply, 
"  that  wasn't  all  for  me.  So-and-so  was  just 
finishing  his  speech." 

"  Stand  by  the  mayor"  became  the  slogan 
from  the  moment  of  the  break  with  the  ma- 
chine. But  before  the  days  of  this  appeal  a 
most  exciting  and  variegated  campaign  had 
been  under  way.  Hardly  was  the  first  great 
meeting  dispersed  when  "  fakirs "  on  the 
streets  were  selling  buttons  bearing  the  pic- 
ture of  a  gallows  and  a  dangling  noose  with 
the  words  "  No  Gas  Steal."  The  responsible 
conductors  of  the  fight  did  not  want  such  an 
element  injected  into  it.    They  designed  a 


172  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

rival  button  bearing  simply  the  flag  and  the 
legend  "  For  the  Honour  of  the  City."  At 
three  o'clock  one  afternoon  they  telephoned 
to  a  firm  in  Newark  an  order  for  a  supply  of 
these  buttons.  At  three  the  next  afternoon 
50,000  of  them  had  been  delivered  and  were 
ready  for  free  distribution.  Meetings  were 
organized,  one  after  another,  at  first  for  the 
city  as  a  whole  and  later  for  the  various 
wards  and  divisions.  Resolutions  were 
passed  growing  ever  "  hotter."  On  some 
nights  there  were  more  than  a  dozen  meet- 
ings with  ten  thousand  citizens  present. 
Songs  were  written  in  the  morning  to  be 
printed  in  the  afternoon  and  sung  at  meet- 
ings the  same  evening.  Every  aid  that  tire- 
less ingenuity  could  devise  for  keeping  up 
the  determination  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
people  was  resorted  to. 

But  the  really  unique  feature  of  the  Phila- 
delphia fight  was  its  pressure  upon  the  indi- 
vidual councilmen.  One  of  the  secrets  of  the 
prolonged  interest  displayed  by  the  people 
when  once  interested  was  that  they  were 
assigned  to  do  something  perfectly  concrete 
and  within  the  powers  of  every  one.  This 
was  to  confront  their  own  individual  repre- 
sentatives in  the  city  legislature.  Not  a 
councilman  was  allowed  to  rest.     Processions 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        1 73 

of  citizens  marched  through  their  wards  look- 
ing for  them  to  see  what  they  proposed  to  do 
about  the  gas  lease.  These  marches  were 
usually  on  foot,  but  in  one  of  the  wealthier 
quarters  of  the  city  a  great  serpent  of  auto- 
mobiles pursued  the  local  member  until  they 
found  him  trying  to  sneak  back  to  his  own 
house  and  told  him  what  they  thought  of  his 
handling  of  their  common  interests. 

In  the  fashionable  suburb  of  Germantown 
there  was  prepared  a  large  poster.  "  Call 
on  your  select  councilman,"  it  said.  Then 
it  contained  pictures  of  the  man  himself,  his 
house,  his  place  of  business  and  the  station 
house  where  he  was  in  the  habit  of  spend- 
ing much  of  his  time.  The  street  and 
number  of  each  of  these  places  were  printed 
and  the  telephone  number  into  the  bargain. 
Thirty-five  men  offered  at  once  to  begin 
calling  upon  this  councilman  at  seven 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  keep  it  up 
through  the  day  in  squads  of  five  at  a  time. 
At  ten  that  night  he  weakened  and  promised 
to  vote  against  the  lease.  Councilmen  found 
themselves  losing  business.  One  who  kept 
a  laundry  did  not  have  a  shirt  left  in  the 
place  for  three  days,  another,  a  saloon-keeper, 
found  leisure  to  think  the  situation  over 
on  [a  day  when  only  ten  drinks  were  called 


174  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

for  over  his  bar.  Men  who  attempted  to 
go  about  their  usual  business  found  that 
their  associates  scarcely  spoke  to  them.  It 
was  an  amusing  circumstance  that  while  the 
"marches"  continued  the  councilmen  for 
whom  their  constituents  were  hunting  rarely 
went  abroad  without  their  wives.  That  pro- 
tected them  in  a  measure  against  indignities, 
but  it  did  not  prevent  their  being  stopped 
and  questioned  by  wrathful  neighbours. 

No  account  of  the  Philadelphia  uprising 
would  be  complete  or  truthful  that  did  not 
mention  the  strong  religious  feeling  that  was 
manifested  in  it.  Four  hundred  church  min- 
isters had  united  in  solemn  prayer  for  their 
stricken  city  only  two  months  before.  There 
are  many  thousands  of  Philadelphians  to-day 
whom  nothing  could  persuade  that  the  events 
of  May  and  November  were  not  direct  provi- 
dential answers  to  that  prayer.  As  much 
was  said  by  grave  business  men  at  the  mass 
meetings.  The  old,  long-meter  doxology  was 
sung,  as  if  by  common  impulse,  at  almost 
every  meeting.  "  Onward  Christian  Sol- 
diers "  was  the  favourite  marching  tune.  Yet 
orthodox  Jews  marched  in  these  same  pro- 
cessions, and  when  representatives  of  the 
"  gang  "  spread  the  rumour  that  the  Jewish 
holidays  would    be  menaced    by  the  new 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        1 75 

movement,  every  rabbi  in  the  city  came  for- 
ward to  tell  his  people  that  it  was  a  false- 
hood. 

The  pressure  was  having  its  effect  Day 
by  day  one^  councilman  after  another  came 
into  the  mayor's  office  and  promised  support. 
One,  who  had  broken  down  and  wept  before 
a  delegation  of  citizens  said  he  had  "  never 
felt  like  a  man  before."  One  gave  in  be- 
cause his  wife  had  become  a  nervous  wreck 
after  the  experiences  she  had  gone  through. 
Still  another  could  not  endure  hearing  his 
children  report  that  their  playmates  said 
their  father  was  a  thief.  The  people,  by  the 
simplest  means  in  the  world,  were  undermin- 
ing daily  the  power  of  the  old  machine. 

What  was  chiefly  feared  at  this  time  was 
the  sudden  calling  of  a  meeting  of  councils 
which  would  quietly  pass  the  lease  over  the 
mayor's  veto.  On  May  27th,  four  days  after 
the  removal  of  the  directors,  the  Committee 
of  Nine  determined  to  issue  a  proclamation 
calling  upon  the  heads  of  manufacturing 
and  mercantile  establishments,  if  such  a 
snap  meeting  were  called,  to  blow  their 
whistles  and  release  their  employees  at  once 
to  march  to  the  City  Hall  in  protest.  An 
evening  newspaper  was  called  up  by  tel- 
ephone at  once,  and  one  of   the  members 


176  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

of  the  committee  prepared  to  read  off  the 
text  of  the  resolution.  "  Haven't  you 
heard  ? "  came  the  city  editor's  voice  over 
the  wire.  "The  lease  has  just  been  with- 
drawn by  the  U.  G.  I." 

The  defeat  of  the  obnoxious  lease  had 
originally  been  the  sole  object  of  the  new 
movement,  but  now  that  it  was  under  way, 
this  began  to  seem  a  mere  incident  in  the 
work  to  be  accomplished.  The  meetings 
called  for  the  next  two  weeks  were  not  given 
up.  They  gained,  rather,  in  enthusiasm. 
It  was  realized  that  the  defeat  of  one  job 
really  marked  only  the  beginning  of  con- 
structive work  for  the  city. 

The  month  of  June  saw  the  formation  of 
two  of  the  unique  organizations  that  have 
taken  part  in  Philadelphia's  redemption. 
First  came  the  "limit  men."  This  group  of 
men  formally  pledged  to  "go  the  limit "  in 
Philadelphia's  interest  began  with  three  mem- 
bers. Every  week  they  lunched  together 
and  every  week  one  or  two  or  three  new 
men  appeared  to  take  the  same  pledge  of 
dedication.  There  were  nine  of  these  weekly 
luncheons,  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  there 
were  twenty-nine  of  the  "  limit  men."  These 
later  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  Philadelphia 
City  Club,  and  one  year  after  their  original 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        1 77 

assembling,  twenty-one  of  the  band  renewed 
their  pledge,  the  absence  of  the  other  eight 
being  in  every  instance  accounted  for. 

The  perpetual  franchises  for  street  railways 
over  one  hundred  and  ten  miles  of  streets 
have  already  been  alluded  to.  A  mass- 
meeting  was  called  on  June  14th,  to  show 
that  the  people  were  awake  to  this  "steal" 
too.  The  call  urged  Philadelphians  to 
"Show  the  spirit  of  Minute  Men."  Some 
one  saw  new  possibilities  in  the  phrase.  Be- 
fore the  night  of  the  meeting  cards  were 
ready  for  distribution  bearing  the  "  Minute 
Men's  Pledge  "  as  follows  : 

"  I  regard  service  to  the  city  as  one  of  my 
foremost  duties.  I  will,  therefore,  make  such 
personal  sacrifices  as  the  interests  of  the  city, 
in  my  judgment,  demand. 

"I  will  make  it  a  prior  engagement  to 
attend  properly  called  meetings  during  any 
municipal  exigency  ;  to  acquaint  councilmen, 
personally  or  by  letter  with  the  fact  that  their 
actions  are  being  closely  watched,  and  to 
fulfill  all  the  duties  of  good  citizenship  pre- 
ceding elections  and  on  election  days." 

To  that  obligation,  by  the  aid  of  wide 
newspaper  publicity,  about  4,400  names  were 
secured.  The  names  themselves  have  never 
been   known   to  but  three   men,  Albert  E. 


178  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

Turner,  Clarence  L.  Harper  and  Cyrus  D. 
Foss,  Jr.  These  were  the  first  three  "  limit 
men."  The  existence  of  a  body  like  the 
"  minute  men "  explicitly  subject  to  sum- 
mons at  any  time,  helped  very  greatly  dur- 
ing the  months  that  followed.  They  were 
actually  called  out  on  four  occasions.  Once 
councils,  again  feeling  sure  that  vigilance 
had  relaxed,  were  preparing  to  refuse  to  ap- 
propriate money  for  the  special  counsel  who 
had  guided  the  mayor  through  his  difficult 
fight.  A  private  notification  was  sent  to 
the  "  minute  men,"  the  galleries  at  the  meet- 
ing of  councils  were  again  crowded,  and  the 
item  under  discussion  went  through  with- 
out difficulty.  Practically  the  same  thing 
was  done  again  as  late  as  the  summer  of 
1906,  when  notices  were  sent  at  twelve  o'clock 
one  evening  to  a  thousand  of  the  "  minute 
men "  and  they  turned  out  the  next  after- 
noon. On  the  other  two  occasions  they  as- 
sembled for  less  martial  purposes,  once  to  re- 
ceive Governor  Folk,  of  Missouri,  and  again 
for  a  demonstration  in  honour  of  Mayor 
Weaver.  We  have  seen  how  Jerome's  forces 
in  New  York  disbanded  the  day  after  elec- 
tion. This  body  intends  to  maintain  itself 
permanently  and  undertake  a  programme  of 
educational  work  along  municipal  lines. 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        1 79 

The  "  minute  men  "  however,  never  as- 
pired to  becoming  a  political  party.  But 
just  as  the  Municipal  League  had  left  behind 
it  a  body  of  trained  workers,  the  City  Party 
offered  ready  made  the  beginnings  of  a  party 
organization.  It  had  put  up  candidates  of 
its  own  for  the  February  election  of  1905, 
although  none  of  them  had  been  elected. 
But  under  the  stimulus  of  the  awakened 
spirit  of  Philadelphia  it  began  now  to  de- 
velop in  earnest.  Its  convention  was  at- 
tended by  900  delegates. 

There  was  no  break  or  "  fresh  start "  ap- 
parent when  the  aroused  citizens  of  Philadel- 
phia ceased  fighting  a  machine  measure  and 
began  fighting  machine  candidates.  The 
cry  was  still  "  For  the  Honour  of  the  City." 
Philadelphia  is  one  of  the  few  American 
cities  with  a  flag  of  its  own  and  that  banner 
of  blue  and  gold  became  the  symbol  of  the 
new  cause.  In  the  old  days  it  had  been 
hoisted  perfunctorily  over  a  few  public 
buildings.  Now  it  blossomed  out  on  every 
street.  Drum  and  fife  corps  in  continental 
uniforms  were  sent  about  to  appeal  to  the 
"spirit  of  '76."  The  "let  down"  on  the 
mayor's  side  which  had  been  predicted  from 
week  to  week  by  the  machine  men  ever  since 
early  May  did  not  come.     The  City  Party 


l80  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

carried  the  day.  Boss  Durham,  up  to  the 
date  of  this  writing,  has  never  returned  to 
Philadelphia.  He  remains  a  "  King  in 
Exile." 

Only  a  bare  handful  of  members  in  either 
branch  of  councils  had  voted  against  the  gas 
lease  in  April.  But  the  men  who  did  at  that 
time  register  effective  protests  from  within 
learned  now  that  their  townsmen  were  not 
ungrateful  for  service  rendered.  Samuel 
Crothers,  who  had  stood  almost  absolutely 
alone  in  the  upper  branch,  unconsidered  in 
appointments  or  organization,  was  elected  by 
the  same  body  as  its  president,  who  stands 
next  in  succession  to  the  mayoralty.  Sim- 
ilarly Thomas  F.  Armstrong,  one  of  the  two 
men  to  make  most  telling  opposition  in  com- 
mon council,  was  elevated  to  the  presidency 
of  that  body,  and  another  of  the  opponents 
of  the  lease,  Wilson  H.  Brown,  headed  the 
City  Party  ticket  in  November. 

And  yet  the  "overwhelming  victory" 
which  the  City  Party  claimed  and  the  ma- 
chine acknowledged  really  consisted  merely 
in  the  election  of  a  sheriff,  a  coroner  and 
three  county  commissioners.  As  in  Mis- 
souri the  demonstration  that  the  people  were 
aroused  and  in  earnest  was  what  secured  the 
results.     "  The  same  old  councils  "  repealed 


PHILADELPHIA'S  REVOLUTION        l8l 

the  street  railway  grab,  and  it  is  now  ac- 
cepted by  everybody  that  Philadelphia  will 
grant  no  more  perpetual  franchises.  **  The 
same  old  legislature  "  at  Harrisburg  gave 
Philadelphia  more  reform  legislation  in  one 
special  session  than  it  had  in  twenty  years 
previous.  Civil  service  reform,  a  personal 
registration  law  which  takes  the  dead  men 
and  the  pet  dogs  from  the  voting  lists  hence- 
forth, a  new  primary  law,  a  corrupt  practices 
act,  a  law  taking  office-holders  out  of  poli- 
tics so  completely  that  even  a  policeman  can- 
not come  within  fifty  feet  of  the  polls,  fol- 
lowed each  other  in  rapid  succession.  The 
revolution  of  1905,  as  many  observers  be- 
lieve, has  transformed  Philadelphia  from  the 
worst  to  one  of  the  best-governed  cities  in 
America. 


IX 

CLEVELAND  AND  THE  THREE-CENT  FARE 

ON  a  mid-summer  afternoon  a  solemn 
procession  of  boys  made  its  way  to 
the  home  of  the  mayor  of  Cleveland, 
and  presented  to  him  a  formal  petition  of 
rights  drawn  up  in  red  ink.  It  recited  the 
fact  that  the  police  were  not  allowing  the 
younger  citizens  of  the  city  to  play  in  its 
streets,  that  the  street  was  pretty  much  their 
only  place  to  play,  and  that  if  they  were  to 
live  happily  under  the  mayor's  jurisdiction, 
it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  the  right  of 
Cleveland  boys  to  play  there  should  be  faith- 
fully conserved.  The  mayor  read  gravely 
the  petition.  Then  he  issued  instructions  to 
the  police,  granting  all  the  rights  asked  for, 
but  with  the  explicit  requirement  in  return 
that  the  boys  should  not  throw  stones.  Since 
that  covenant  they  have  not  been  arrested, 
like  the  boys  of  so  many  cities,  at  the  caprice 
of  the  policeman  on  the  beat.  They  are 
burghers  with  as  definite  rights  as  their 
elders. 
The  granting  of  this  juvenile  magna  charta 
182 


TOM  LOFTIN  JOHNSON   • 

Born,  Georgetown,  Kentucky,  July  i8,  1854. 

Educated  in  Public  Schools. 

Clerk  in  street  railway  office,  Louisville,  Ky. 

Invented  street  railway  devices. 

Acquired  street  railroad  interests  in  several  cities. 

Engaged  in  iron  manufacture. 

Moved  to  Cleveland. 

Elected  to  Congress  as  Democrat,  1890. 

Reelected,  1892. 

Elected  Mayor  of  Cleveland,  1901. 

Reelected  1903  (spring)  and  1905. 

Candidate  for  Governor  of  Ohio,  1903  (fall). 

"  /  will  prophesy  that  we  are  going  to  have  better  city 
government  because  we  are  going  to  have  better  citizens, 
because  party  ties  are  growing  less  each  year,  and  love  of 
citizenship  is  becoming  more." 


THE  THREE-CENT  FARE  1 83 

is  a  little  illustration  of  a  big  principle.  It  is 
a  principle  which  happens  to  be  typical  of 
Cleveland  within  the  last  few  years.  It  is,  in 
a  word,  the  principle  of  belief  in  the  city. 
That  means  an  underlying  creed  and  a  men- 
tal attitude  rather  than  any  programme  of 
specific  things  to  be  done.  Undoubtedly 
much  of  the  noblest,  most  unselfish  and  most 
valuable  work  in  behalf  of  the  poor  of  our 
cities  is  done  by  men  and  women  who  believe 
the  city  itself  to  be  at  best  a  necessary  evil. 
But  there  is  another  way  of  looking  at  it. 
Where  one  sees  the  squalor,  and  the  flaunting 
luxury,  the  inexorable  demands  upon  the 
workers,  the  dying  down  of  neighbourliness, 
another  perceives  the  brave  spirit  of  the 
same  city,  its  abounding  life,  its  transcendent 
possibilities. 

One  of  the  needs  of  this  country  is  for  men 
who  can  face  intelligently  and  hopefully 
the  fact  that  our  cities  are  growing  faster 
than  the  rest  of  the  country,  and  that  city  life 
will  inevitably  be  the  permanent  lot  of  a 
larger  and  larger  proportion  of  Americans. 
It  is  of  supreme  importance  to  make  city  life 
a  "  livable  "  form  of  life  for  others  than  the 
well-to-do.  "  Up  to  the  present  time,"  writes 
Frederick  C.  Howe,  one  of  the  very  group  of 
men  who  are  working  to-day  for  the  improve- 


l84  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

ment  of  Cleveland,  "  the  boss  has  been  the 
American  City's  only  apologist."  That  is  a 
state  of  affairs  which  is  now  being  generally 
remedied.  So  much  thought  and  work  are 
being  given  to  city  problems,  so  much  is  be- 
ing invested  in  their  physical  betterment, 
such  improvement  has  been  made  in  their 
government,  that  pride  and  love  and  loyalty 
on  the  part  of  citizens  are  almost  sure  to  fol- 
low. Meanwhile  it  is  a  happy  circumstance 
that  the  ideal  of  service  to  the  city  as  some- 
thing both  excellent  and  lasting  should  be 
typified,  as  it  is  in  Cleveland,  by  a  big,  jovial, 
practical,  money-making  man,  who  knows 
his  problem  from  all  sides,  and  believes  that 
the  American  genius  can  make  the  American 
city  the  best  managed,  as  it  has  been  called 
the  worst  managed,  in  the  world. 

Tom  L.  Johnson,  a  man  of  old  Kentucky 
stock,  exemplifies  better  than  any  other  in 
the  public  eye  to-day  some  of  the  qualities 
that  we  like  to  think  are  most  characteris- 
tically American — the  keen  sense  of  the 
humours  and  incongruities  that  are  mingled 
with  the  most  serious  and  tragic  problems, 
the  understanding  and  appreciation  of  the 
men  he  is  fighting  hardest.  No  one  has 
more  than  he  of  the  spirit  which  made  the 
signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 


THE  THREE-CENT  FARE  185 

joke  about  the  circumstance  that  if  they  did 
not  all  hang  together  they  would  all  hang 
separately.  There  is  a  kind  of  jesting  in  the 
face  of  danger  or  difficulty  that  shocks  by  its 
recklessness.  Tom  Johnson's  humour  on  the 
other  hand,  is  one  of  the  most  human  ways 
of  expressing  determination  so  strong  that  it 
no  longer  needs  to  be  sustained  by  exhorta- 
tion or  solemnly  reiterated  resolve.  The 
patriots  of  1776  could  joke  about  their  cause 
and  their  peril  for  the  simple  reason  that 
capitulation  had  become  with  them  an  abso- 
lutely unthinkable  alternative. 

A  Tom  Johnson  speech  carries  you  back 
and  forth  from  righteous  wrath  to  wild  hilar- 
ity, yet  its  pervading  earnestness  is  no  less 
impressive  in  the  latter  than  in  the  former. 
This  is  something  that  can  be  said  only  of  a 
"  big  "  if  not  a  great  man's  oratory.  Shortly 
after  his  second  reelection,  the  Cleveland 
mayor  was  invited  to  speak  at  a  banquet  in 
New  York  attended  by  men  interested  in 
municipal  reform.  Most  of  his  talk  grew 
naturally  out  of  what  previous  speakers  had 
been  saying,  but  presently  he  began  to  touch 
on  the  disagreeable  tasks  which  his  position 
in  Cleveland  had  forced  upon  him.  It  was 
disagreeable,  for  instance,  to  argue  and  plead 
with  an  obstinate  city  council.     But  he  had 


I86  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

to  confront  them,  he  explained,  to  tell  them 
squarely,  "  you  have  held  up  such  and  such 
an  ordinance  without  legitimate  reason,  and 
I  think  youWe  bought  /  " 

He  was  simply  telling  the  story  of  some- 
thing he  had  actually  done.  Yet  the  tone 
and  inflection  of  that  one  retrospective  sen- 
tence were  as  indescribable  as  those  with 
which  Joe  Jefferson  used  to  utter  his  lament 
for  Rip's  dog  Schneider,  and  a  more  com- 
plete characterization  of  the  man  Tom  John- 
son could  hardly  have  been  contained  in  a 
thousand  times  as  many  words.  In  the  first 
place  it  showed  a  man  who  would  not  and 
did  not  hesitate  an  instant  about  meeting  the 
corruptionist  face  to  face  and  telling  him  what 
he  thought  of  him.  But  at  the  same  time  it 
showed  a  man  whose  resentment  against  this 
same  corruptionist  was  not  in  the  least  per- 
sonal. The  passage  of  the  held-up  ordinance 
was  the  important  consideration  with  him, 
not  either  the  reformation  or  the  punishment 
of  a  few  grafting  aldermen,  themselves  the 
product  of  a  system.  Jerome  would  have 
said,  "  I  think  you're  bought,"  in  a  way  to 
make  your  flesh  creep ;  Tom  Johnson  said  it 
in  a  way  that  left  his  New  York  audience 
cheering,  applauding  and  howling  with  de- 
lighted laughter  all  at  once.    The  picture  he 


THE  THREE-CENT  FARE  187 

conveyed  was  so  novel,  so  inspiring,  and  yet 
at  the  same  time  so  inimitably  funny  that  a 
single  way  of  expressing  one's  feelings  was 
not  enough. 

In  the  famous  circus  tent  campaign  for  the 
governorship  of  Ohio  in  1903  he  did  some  of 
the  plainest  speaking  that  even  a  western 
platform  ever  heard.  Yet  he  paused  over 
and  again  to  explain  that  the  man  whom  he 
was  excoriating  was  Senator  Hanna  or  Poli- 
tician Hanna  or  Boss  Hanna  and  not  his  old 
friend  and  neighbour  Mark  Hanna.  His 
attacks  had  not  a  particle  of  bitterness  or 
rancour  and  his  appeal  was  throughout  to 
reason  and  not  prejudice.  Here  is  a  charac- 
teristic bit  from  one  of  his  speeches  :  "I  have 
never  made  one  of  these  charges  against 
Senator  Hanna  without  inviting  him  to  at- 
tend my  meeting  and  hear  my  speech,  to  sit 
on  my  platform  with  me  and  answer  me  when 
I  am  through.  I  have  made  the  invitation  ap- 
plicable to  any  one  he  chooses  to  send  in  his 
stead,  if  he  cannot  conveniently  come  him- 
self. But  he  has  always  declined.  Now  don't 
delude  yourselves  with  the  belief  that  he 
keeps  out  of  the  way  so  as  not  to  hear  what 
I  say  of  him.  He  knows  all  I  say  as  well  as 
you  do  who  are  present.  Over  yonder  at 
that  table  sits  a  young  man,  Senator  Hanna's 


l88  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

stenographer,  who  is  taking  down  what  I  am 
saying  now  and  has  taken  down  everything 
I  have  said  in  this  campaign.  After  this 
evening's  meeting  is  over,  he  will  transcribe 
his  notes  and  mail  them  in  long  hand  to  the 
senator.  It  is  a  very  nice  arrangement,  the 
senator  knows  just  how  far  I  go  in  my  plain 
handling  of  him  and  I  know  I  am  insured 
against  garbling.  Do  I  mind  having  that 
young  man  with  me,  with  his  special  delivery 
system  direct  from  Tom  Johnson's  tent  to 
Senator  Hanna's  breakfast  table?  Bless  you, 
no.  He  is  a  good  fellow ;  we're  all  devoted 
to  him.  He  travels  everywhere  with  us,  and 
is  as  much  a  part  of  the  show  as  any  of  the 
rest. 

"  But  how  does  Senator  Hanna  treat  me  ? 
He  never  invites  me  to  his  platform.  Why, 
I  dropped  in  at  a  Republican  meeting  one 
evening,  just  to  hear  what  they  were  saying 
about  our  side  and  learn  a  little  wisdom  if  I 
could.  I  sat  away  back  in  the  crowd,  mod- 
estly, as  became  me.  But  I  hadn't  been 
there  long  before  a  man  on  the  platform 
spied  me  out  and  rushed  up  to  the  chairman 
in  a  state  of  great  agitation.  'Mr.  Chair- 
man,' he  whispered  hoarsely,  pointing  at  me, 
'there's  Tom  Johnson  in  the  audience  1 '  And 
the  chairman  said,  '  Ahem  I     Mr.  Johnson,  I 


THE  THREE-CENT  FARE  1 89 

beg  to  remind  you  that  this  is  a  Republican 
meeting.'  *  Oh/  said  I,  getting  up.  *  I  beg 
pardon,  I  thought  it  was  a  pubHc  meeting.' 
And  I  walked  out.  And  I  am  pleased  to  say 
that  two-thirds  of  that  Republican  audience 
walked  out  with  me.  Don't  think,  my  friends, 
that  the  common  run  of  Republicans  are  at 
all  behind  us  in  liking  fair  play.  They  like 
it  as  well  as  we  do,  only  they  don't  get  it 
from  their  leaders." 

About  himself  and  his  party  he  speaks  with 
almost  as  much  candour  as  about  the  enemy. 
He  is  a  rich  man,  and  he  has  made  his  money 
by  taking  advantage  of  the  very  conditions 
which  he  has  striven  hardest  to  have  changed. 
As  an  earnest  orator  once  expressed  it  to  a 
street  corner  audience  in  Cleveland,  "  He  has 
done  everything  he  could  to  induce  you  to 
keep  that  money  in  your  own  pockets."  He 
has  been  more  pithily  and  perhaps  more 
justly  called  a  "  reformed  business  man." 

When  he  was  in  Congress  in  1894  and  the 
Wilson  tarifl  bill  came  up  for  debate,  he  was 
scarcely  allowed  to  begin  his  own  remarks 
before  the  Republicans  were  on  their  feet  to 
bring  out  by  questions  the  fact  that  Johnson 
himself  was  a  beneficiary  of  the  McKinley 
tariff.  He  admitted  that  the  mill  in  which  he 
was  interested  made  about  one-thirtieth  of  the 


I90  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

Steel  rails  produced  in  this  country.  Then 
John  Dalzell  of  Pennsylvania  inquired,  "  Is 
the  gentleman  a  party  to  the  steel  rail  trust  ?  " 

"  I  am  not,"  declared  Johnson,  "  but  whether 
I  am  or  not  would  make  no  difference.  Out- 
side of  this  hall  as  a  steel  manufacturer  I 
might  be  perfectly  willing  to  enter  a  trust  but 
I  will  not  defend  trusts  here.  As  far  as  I  am 
personally  concerned,"  he  went  on,  a  minute 
later,  "  I  am  a  thoroughgoing  monopolist  and 
would  be  willing,  outside  of  this  hall,  to  take 
advantage  of  any  of  the  bad  laws  that  you 
put  upon  the  statute  books ;  but  I  will  not 
defend  them  here.  ...  If  you  put  steel 
rails  on  the  free  list,  as  I  intend  to  move,  you 
will  not  shut  up  mills.  You  will  lessen  the 
profits  of  some  of  us  steel  rail  manufacturers, 
but  you  will  stimulate  industry,  give  idle  labour 
a  chance  for  employment  and  so  tend  to  raise 
wages." 

In  1892  Johnson  was  one  of  a  group  of 
Democrats  in  Congress  who  conceived  the 
idea  of  having  Henry  George's  book  on 
"  Protection  or  Free  Trade  "  printed  and  circu- 
lated as  a  government  publication.  They  did 
not  carry  out  their  plan  all  at  once,  however. 
The  book  had  twenty-eight  chapters.  John- 
son first  secured  the  floor  for  half  an  hour  and 
began  a  speech  on  the  wool  bill.     When  his 


THE  THREE-CENT  FARE  IQI 

time  was  up  he  asked  in  the  usual  way  for 
"  unanimous  consent  to  extend  my  remarks 
in  the  Record. ^^  That  "  extension  "  consisted 
of  chapters  one  to  five  from  Mr.  George's 
book.  A  little  later,  Mr.  Fithian  of  Illinois 
inserted  chapters  six  to  ten,  Mr.  Washington 
of  Tennessee  chapters  eleven  to  fifteen  and 
so  on  till  there  were  only  three  chapters  re- 
maining unprinted.  Then  Mr.  Burrows  of 
Michigan,  now  a  senator,  objected  to  the 
whole  proceeding,  and  there  was  a  lively  de- 
bate. "  I  am  one  of  the  gtiilty  persons,"  said 
Johnson,  "  and  I  am  proud  of  it.  I  knew  that 
it  was  well  written  and  calculated  to  make 
Democratic  votes.  For  that  reason  I  put  it 
in." 

It  is  fairly  typical  of  Mr.  Johnson's  attitude, 
that  when  he  originally  became  a  candidate 
for  the  mayoralty  he  placed  the  issue  of  three- 
cent  fares  with  universal  transfers  above  the 
issue  of  good  government.  Most  men,  espe- 
cially most  municipal  reformers,  would  have 
reversed  the  order.  Yet  it  is  an  open  question 
whether  the  average  city  dweller  would  not 
prefer  to  have  corruption  stalking  through 
the  City  Hall  while  he  himself  is  carried 
cheaply  and  conveniently  to  his  home  and  to 
his  office,  than  to  enjoy  a  city  government  by 
archangels  and  suffer  for  a  bad  trolley  service. 


192  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

For  all  that,  circumstances  beyond  Mayor 
Johnson's  control  permitted  him  to  give 
Cleveland  the  good  government  which  was 
an  incidental  feature  of  his  programme,  while 
he  has  not  yet  secured  the  low  fares  for  which 
he  has  worked  so  long. 

In  much  of  the  work  done  under  Johnson's 
administrations  the  same  idea  of  belief  in  the 
city  as  a  permanent  home  is  apparent. 
"  Cleveland,"  as  a  quick  eyed  traveller  once 
remarked,  "  has  fewer  '  Keep  off  the  Grass ' 
signs  than  any  other  American  city."  This 
may  not  be  literally  true,  but  no  city  has  done 
more  than  Cleveland  towards  encouraging  its 
people  to  use  to  the  full  all  the  park  facilities 
for  games  and  picnics  and  the  like.  The  idea 
that  water  costs  money  and  must  be  hus- 
banded and  economized  is  also  characteristic- 
ally an  urban  notion.  The  city  of  the  future 
will  have  to  learn  how  to  take  care  of  its  water 
supply.  Cleveland  is  already  one  of  the  most 
thoroughly  water-metred  communities  in  this 
country.  Johnson  is  one  of  the  leading  single 
tax  advocates  to-day.  Without  attempting 
to  carry  out  his  theories  in  full,  one  of  his  first 
innovations  was  the  establishment  of  a  "  tax 
school "  for  equalizing  and  adjusting  assess- 
ments according  to  the  so-called  Somers  plan 
of  valuation. 


THE  THREE-CENT  FARE  193 

When  he  appointed  as  chief  of  police  an 
officer  belonging  to  the  opposite  party  and 
called  in  a  former  professor  in  Chicago  Uni- 
versity, Dr.  Edward  W.  Bemis,  to  conduct  the 
city  water  works,  and  named  a  clergyman, 
the  Rev.  H.  R.  Cooley  for  his  director  of 
Charities  and  Corrections,  Mayor  Johnson 
gave  its  peculiar  character  to  an  adminis- 
tration that  systematically  sought  practical 
service  rather  than  "  regularity."  Besides 
having  the  routine  of  the  city  government 
conducted  by  a  group  of  men  both  expert  and 
enthusiastic,  the  city  has  been  carrying  out 
some  of  the  most  ambitious  plans  of  improve- 
ment and  beautification  that  are  under  way 
anywhere  in  this  country. 

The  story  of  Cleveland's  traction  issue  of 
late  years  is  chiefly  contained  in  the  records 
of  the  courts.  Three  years  before  Johnson 
became  mayor  a  pair  of  ordinances  providing 
for  lower  street  railway  fares  had  been  at- 
tacked by  means  of  injunction  suits  and  these 
actions  were  not  finally  settled  until  the  new 
mayor  had  served  the  whole  of  his  first  and 
part  of  his  second  term.  With  a  few  small 
exceptions  the  questions  of  lower  fares  and 
new  franchises  alike  were  kept  continuously 
in  litigation  for  more  than  eight  years.  The 
city  council  passed  ordinances  to  reduce  fares 


194  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

on  the  existing  lines,  invited  competition  for 
new  routes,  made  fresh  grants  of  franchises 
which  it  beHeved  to  have  expired.  But  all 
plans  were  equally  futile.  The  traction  com- 
panies, which  were  consolidated  during  the 
progress  of  the  long  fight,  not  only  secured 
injunction  after  injunction  from  the  courts ; 
in  1902,  wishing  to  prevent  the  granting  of 
franchises  for  ten  competing  lines,  they  per- 
suaded the  courts  to  overthrow  the  whole 
city  charter,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  special 
legislation  and  as  such  unconstitutional. 
This  left  not  only  Cleveland  but  other  Ohio 
cities  without  any  government  at  all  for  a 
period  of  some  eleven  months,  and  necessi- 
tated the  calling  of  the  legislature  in  special 
session  to  supply  the  lack.  In  1903,  when 
an  independent  company  offered  to  build  one 
of  the  proposed  lines  and  operate  it  at  a 
three-cent  rate  of  fare,  a  mysterious  rival  put 
in  a  better  bid,  offering  a  two-cent  fare,  and 
secured  the  franchise.  Not  even  a  beginning 
was  ever  made  towards  carrying  out  this  offer 
and  it  afterwards  transpired  that  the  whole 
two-cent  fare  proposal  had  been  instigated 
by  the  five-cent  fare  interests  for  the  purpose 
of  defeating  the  three-cent  fare  company 
which  was  then  trying  to  secure  the  right  to 
build  a  line. 


THE  THREE-CENT  FARE  1 95 

With  the  exception  of  a  fifty-two  day  in- 
terval between  injunctions  in  the  fall  of  1903 — 
just  before  election  day,  by  the  way — during 
which  somewhat  less  than  two  miles  of  track 
had  been  laid,  there  was  no  actual  construc- 
tion for  the  much-discussed  three-cent  fare 
line  until  April  25,  1906. 

With  the  lifting  of  the  long  legal  embargo, 
however,  there  began  a  traction  discussion  in 
Cleveland  which  is  perhaps  the  best  example 
this  country  has  afforded  of  the  frank  and 
open  fashion  in  which  the  determination  of 
such  important  city  questions  can  be  and 
ought  to  be  carried  on.  The  old  company 
made  a  formal  offer  to  carry  passengers  at 
seven  rides  for  a  quarter,  just  fifty-seven  one- 
hundredths  of  a  cent  above  the  long-awaited 
three-cent  fare,  and  promised  universal  trans- 
fers. In  newspaper  advertisements  it  also 
began  to  take  the  public  into  its  confidence. 
"  Which  would  you  rather  have  ?  "  it  asked 
in  one  of  these,  "  a  long  ride  for  one  three- 
and-a-half-cent  fare,  from  anywhere  to  any- 
where, on  the  Cleveland  Electric  Railway 
Company's  235  mUes  of  line,  or  a  short  ride 
for  three  cents,  beginning  nowhere  and  end- 
ing near  there,  on  the  Forest  City  Railway's 
eleven  miles  of  line.  If  you  think  it  will  be 
a  good  thing  for  the  city  of   Cleveland  to 


196  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

have  all  its  street  railways  a  part  oi  our 
whole-way  system,  you  will  be  on  our  side. 
If  you  prefer  one  half-way  line  you  will  be  on 
the  side  of  the  Political  Syndicate." 

Mayor  Johnson  would  settle  the  whole 
traction  controversy  by  turning  over  the 
property  of  both  companies  to  a  holding 
corporation  or  syndicate  to  be  composed  of 
men  satisfactory  alike  to  them  and  the  city 
and  incorporated  at  a  nominal  capitalization. 
This  company  would  operate  both  roads  just 
as  the  Interborough  Company  of  New  York 
operates  the  subway  and  elevated  lines  in 
that  city,  guaranteeing  the  interest  on  their 
bonds  and  dividends  on  their  stock  at  a  pre- 
determined rate.  Much  the  same  plan  was 
proposed  in  1905  but  the  price  suggested  for 
taking  over  the  stock  did  not  then  prove 
satisfactory. 

It  is  one  of  the  peculiar  features  of  the  situ- 
ation that  the  adoption  of  Johnson's  plan 
would  not  necessarily  bring  about  the  rate 
of  fares  and  the  system  of  transfers  which 
were  the  chief  promises  of  his  original  plat- 
form. His  three-cent  fare  doctrine,  if  it  may 
be  so  called,  is  simply  an  experienced  street 
railway  manager's  belief  that  when  prop- 
erly built  and  financed  a  street  railway 
in  an  American  city  can  be  made  abun- 


THE  THREE-CENT  FARE  197 

dantly  profitable  at  a  three-cent  rate.  "  If  we 
could  buy  the  stock  on  the  basis  of  the 
actual  physical  valuation,  say  of  $50,000  a 
mile,"  he  said  in  an  interview,  "  a  three-cent 
fare  with  universal  transfers  would  not  only 
be  possible  but  would  leave  excess  earnings 
sufficient  to  take  care  of  needed  extensions 
and  improvements  and  rapidly  reduce  the 
fixed  charge  by  absorbing  the  securities  at 
the  option  price.  If  we  had  to  pay  say 
eighty  dollars  a  share  for  the  stock,  we  might 
still  operate  under  the  three-cent  fare,  but  it 
would  be  necessary  perhaps  to  charge  one 
cent  for  transfers.  You  will  readily  see  that 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  difference  in  the  fare 
that  may  be  charged  and  the  profit  made  by 
a  company  capitalized  as  the  Forest  City  is 
at  $50,000  a  mile,  and  one  capitalized  as  the 
Cleveland  Electric  is  at  $150,000  a  mile.  In 
the  latter  case  there  is  a  good-will  or  fran- 
chise factor  of  $100,000  a  mile  which,  while 
it  does  not  represent  actual  investment,  still 
must  be  acknowledged  in  any  division  of 
profits." 

Municipal  ownership  in  Cleveland  is  in 
no  sense  an  immediate  alternative  because 
the  State  law  explicitly  prohibits  municipal- 
ities from  owning  street  railway  properties. 
Mayor  Johnson  believes,  however,  that  after 


198  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

the  holding  company  plan  is  once  in  success- 
ful operation  the  legislature  will  gladly  re- 
move this  prohibition  "  as  such  a  proposition 
would  no  longer  be  opposed  by  the  big 
money  interests." 

The  rights  in  this  controversy  and  the 
merits  of  the  alternative  proposals  do  not 
really  concern  an  outsider.  But  it  is  profit- 
able for  the  rest  of  the  country  to  observe  the 
spirit  in  which  all  these  intricate  problems 
are  being  worked  out.  It  is  at  the  opposite 
extreme  from  the  setniment  which  brought  out 
votes  for  an  impossible  **  immediate  "  munic- 
ipal ownership,  and  made  some  hundreds  of 
Chicagoans  on  the  day  after  Mayor  Dunne's 
election  in  1905  refuse  to  pay  fare  on  the 
ground  that  they  had  just  voted  for  this 
policy  and  their  side  had  won.  Cleveland 
may  in  time  own  and  operate  its  street 
railways.  Johnson  hopes  it  will  be  the  first 
large  American  city  to  do  so,  but  if  this  does 
come  about,  it  will  be  after  most  thorough 
discussion,  the  patient  hearing  of  both  sides, 
and  probably  the  practical  trial  of  a  half-way 
scheme  like  that  suggested  by  the  mayor. 
This  is  the  way  in  which  our  cities  must  ap- 
proach and  settle  their  great  problems  of  the 
future,  and  Cleveland,  under  Tom  Johnson's 
lead,  is  showing  the  way. 


EVERETT  COLBY 

Born,  Milwaukee,  Wisconsin,  December  lo,  1875. 
Graduated  Brown  University,  1897. 
Graduated  New  York  University  Law  School,  1899. 
Practiced  law.  New  York  City. 
Entered  banking  firm,  1 904. 

Appointed  member  New  Jersey  State  Board  of  Educa- 
tion, 1 901. 
Elected  New  Jersey  Assembly  as  Republican,  1902. 
Reelected,  1903  and  1904. 
Elected  State  Senator,  1905. 

♦•  The  boss  and  his  breed  must  go,  but  if  he  is  to  go,  the 
reformers  who  put  him  out  will  have  to  give  the  people 
something  better. " 


.  r ;  ■    '        ■  ■ '  - - 

•  i,.iijbd  to  bT*.i.wl  J  J. •:•?-.  Y 


■.^v^^v"^  -a^'^  •;  • 


NEW  JERSEY'S  STIRRINGS 

THE  movement  for  the  emancipation 
of  New  Jersey,  the  last  of  any  herein 
described,  has,  nevertheless,  in  a 
sense,  recapitulated  the  history  of  all  these 
reform  struggles.  Nowhere  were  relations 
between  the  corporations  and  the  political 
bosses  closer  or  more  plainly  manifest.  No- 
where did  over  capitalized  public  service 
companies  make  more  unreasonable  de- 
mands. Nowhere  were  the  voters  as  a  body 
more  apathetic  regarding  the  condition  into 
which  their  state  was  drifting.  It  may  be 
added,  despite  setbacks,  that  nowhere,  once 
their  interest  was  aroused,  have  they  prom- 
ised more  hearty  response  to  the  call  for  help 
in  improving  conditions. 

One  concern,  the  Public  Service  Corpor- 
ation, acquired  control  of  so  large  a  propor- 
tion of  the  trolleys,  electric  light  and  power 
companies,  gas  and  water  works,  that  it  has 
been  only  justifiable  hyperbole  for  Jerseymen 
to  say  that  it  owned  the  State  of  New  Jersey. 
This  Public  Service  Corporation,  the  Fidelity . 
199 


200  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

Trust  Company,  the  Union  National  Bank  of 
Newark  and  the  Prudential  Insurance  Com- 
pany of  America  became  bound  together,  by 
extremely  close  financial  and  personal  ties. 
Of  the  four  men  who  served  on  all  the 
directorates  within  a  few  years  one,  Thomas 
N.  McCarter,  was  made  Attorney-General  of 
the  State  and  another,  John  F.  Dryden,  a 
United  States  senator. 

To  be  explicit,  the  Public  Service  Corpora- 
tion owned  650  miles  of  perpetual  franchises 
for  traction  lines,  more  than  enough  to 
stretch  from  Trenton  to  Cleveland,  and 
capitalized  at  a  very  much  higher  rate  per 
mile  than  those  against  which  Tom  Johnson 
fought  in  the  latter  city.  "  Trenton  street 
cars  and  Elizabeth  gas"  have  been  named 
as  the  only  important  properties  of  the  kind 
outside  of  its  control.  The  steam  railroads 
in  New  Jersey,  meanwhile,  were  paying  only 
two  and  eight-tenths  per  cent,  of  their  income 
in  taxes,  while  the  very  roads  that  have  been 
attacked  for  their  domination  of  other  states, 
including  the  Boston  and  Maine,  against 
whose  control  in  New  Hampshire  Winston 
Churchill,  the  novelist,  undertook  his  un- 
successful but  promising  campaign  in  1906, 
paid  from  four  and  five-tenths  to  nine  per 
cent. 


NEW  JERSEY'S  STIRRING  20I 

The  mayor  of  Jersey  City,  of  whom  more 
is  to  be  said,  expressed  the  situation  in  a  let- 
ter to  the  Governor  early  in  1904.  "  A  Re- 
publican legislature  is  controlled  by  the  rail- 
road, trolley  and  water  corporations,"  he 
wrote,  although  a  Republican  himself,  "and 
the  interests  of  the  people  are  being  betrayed. 
While  I  charge  no  man  with  personal  corrup- 
tion I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  this  is  a 
condition  of  affairs  which  is  essentially  cor- 
rupt, and  which,  if  unchecked,  means  the 
virtual  control  of  our  State  and  our  party  by 
corporations." 

Besides  exhibiting  the  familiar  form  of 
corporation  domination  through  alliance 
with  the  bosses  who  controlled  nomi- 
nations. New  Jersey  came  to  be  known 
throughout  the  country  as  "  the  corporation 
State  "  in  the  same  sense  that  South  Dakota 
is  known  as  "  the  divorce  State."  The  laws 
governing  the  forming  of  companies  were 
deliberately  made  so  liberal  that  promoters 
who  wanted  to  incorporate  concerns  that  the 
states  with  reasonably  strict  laws  refused  to 
charter,  almost  invariably  applied  at  Trenton. 
It  became  a  regular  industry  to  rent  rooms 
for  the  annual  meetings  of  New  Jersey  cor- 
porations which  had  no  other  connection 
whatever  with  the  State.    But  the  question- 


202  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

able  business  which  no  other  State  would 
take  brought  New  Jersey  large  revenues  and 
paid  for  improvements  and  roads  that  are 
famous.     There  was  no  effective  protest. 

The  acquiescence  of  the  decent  people  of 
this  State  in  the  domination  of  the  railroads 
and  the  "  public  service  crowd  "  was  merely 
the  same  condition  that  prevailed  at  the  same 
time  in  many  other  States.  Yet  there  were 
unique  features  about  New  Jersey's  popu- 
lation. 

A  Southerner  paying  a  visit  in  one  of  the 
suburban  towns  of  Essex  County  was  once 
asked  on  his  departure,  the  conventional 
question  what  had  impressed  him  most  dur- 
ing his  stay.  "  Well,"  he  replied,  "  on  the 
way  from  here  to  New  York  there  lies  a  city 
twice  the  size  of  any  city  in  my  own  State 
and  larger  than  any  in  the  States  that  touch 
my  own  State.  In  fact,  by  a  bee-line,  I 
should  have  to  pass  through  at  least  two 
other  States  in  any  direction  before  reaching 
a  city  as  large  as  Newark.  And  yet  half 
your  trains  donH  even  stop  there  !  "  There  is 
an  element  in  that  jesting  comment  which 
really  helps  to  an  understanding  of  New 
Jersey  conditions.  This  is  a  State,  so  to 
speak,  of  two  largely  distinct  populations. 
One  of  these  has  built  up  a  series  of  impor- 


NEW  JERSEY'S  STIRRING  203 

tant  industrial  centres,  making  New  Jersey 
the  sixth  State  in  point  of  manufactures.  It 
has  developed  a  specialized  agriculture  which 
makes  New  Jersey  the  leading  producer  in 
several  lines  of  trucking  crops  and  the  like. 
It  has  developed  market  towns  and  shopping 
towns  equal  to  those  of  any  section  of  similar 
population. 

But  just  outside  of  New  Jersey  at  either 
end  there  happened  to  grow  up  cities  so 
much  larger  than  anything  within  its  borders 
that  as  soon  as  the  suburban  movement  be- 
gan they  overflowed  into  this  convenient 
neighbour-state.  It  is  said  that  125,000  com- 
muters leave  for  New  York  every  morning 
and  25,000  for  Philadelphia.  New  Jersey  is 
unlike  any  other  State  in  having  a  voting 
population  something  like  a  third  of  which 
spends  its  days  in  another  State,  earns  its 
living  in  another  State,  reads  the  newspapers 
of  another  State  and,  only  too  often,  has  its 
primary  interests  there. 

The  commuters'  lack  of  especial  state  pride 
or  interest  in  home  affairs  was  easy  to  under- 
stand. But  at  the  same  time  they  made  up 
a  population  of  unusual  intelligence,  prosper- 
ous and  self-respecting,  of  natural  inde- 
pendent proclivities  and  bound  by  no  ties 
whatever  to  the  local  bosses.     While  they 


204  'AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

remained  indifferent  the  control  by  these 
bosses  was  relatively  easy ;  what  had  not 
been  realized  was  that  they  offered  at  the 
same  time  almost  ideal  material  for  a  prompt 
and  effective  rising  when  the  time  came. 

It  is  usually  quite  enough  of  a  task  to  con- 
duct a  campaign  in  one  State.  But  as  the 
date  for  the  New  Jersey  Republican  primaries 
approached  in  September,  1905,  the  New 
York  papers  began  to  print  advertisements 
relating  to  a  fight  that  was  in  progress  on 
the  other  side  of  the  river.  "  Essex  County 
Commuters  I  Attention  1"  so  the  head- 
ings read.  Then  followed  the  announcement 
of  Assemblyman  Everett  Colby's  candidacy 
for  State  senator,  and  the  statement  on  the 
authority  of  the  chairman  of  his  committee 
that  "  The  Public  Service  Corporation  refuses 
to  permit  any  Colby  advertisements  in  the 
trolley  cars." 

The  body  of  this  advertisement  was  made 
up  of  two  companion  pictures  with  accom- 
panying text.  One  picture  showed  the  ele- 
vated tracks  of  a  railroad  passing  over  a  city 
street. 

"This  railroad  main  stem,"  it  said,  "was 
elevated  at  a  cost  to  Newark  of  $1,500,000, 
and  the  taxpayers  will  have  to  raise  $75,000 
a  year  for  thirty  years  to  pay  the  principal 


NEW  JERSEY'S  STIRRING  205 

and  interest  on  this  debt.  .  .  .  This  prop- 
erty, improved  by  the  taxpayers,  pays  taxes 
at  the  rate  of  $s  per  $1,000  of  valuation. 
.  .  .  Major  Lentz  and  the  County  Com- 
mittee endorse  the  law  which  fixes  this  rate." 

The  second  picture  showed  a  typical  work- 
ingman's  frame  cottage. 

"  This  taxpayer's  home,"  said  the  accom- 
panying text,  "  was  erected  with  the  money 
of  the  owner.  The  city  of  Newark  contributed 
not  one  cent  to  the  erection  of  this  house. 
.  .  .  This  property,  improved  by  the 
owner,  pays  taxes  at  the  rate  of  $22.70  per 
$1,000  of  valuation.  .  .  .  Everett  Colby 
favours  a  law  to  compel  the  railroads  to  pay 
the  same  rate  as  the  citizen  pays." 

Everett  Colby  was  called  by  his  opponents, 
"The  fresh  young  millionaire  from  Wall 
Street."  He  was  the  son  of  a  railroad  presi- 
dent, Charles  L.  Colby,  of  the  Wisconsin 
Central.  There  was  nothing  in  his  training 
or  early  record  to  suggest  the  line  of  his  work 
as  the  leader  of  a  movement  against  corpora- 
tion domination.  But  he  was  a  young  man 
who  naturally  made  friends  and  inspired  con- 
fidence. Every  college  man  will  recognize 
the  type  of  student  who  is  elected  president 
of  his  class  in  the  freshman  year.  That  was 
Everett  Colby's  first  distinction  when  he  went 


206  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

to  Brown  University.  Later  he  made  a  fair 
record  as  an  athlete,  though  a  light  weight 
playing  quarter  back  on  the  football  team. 
After  graduation,  although  he  did  not  need 
to  earn  his  own  living,  he  did  begin  to  build 
up  a  law  practice,  which  he  subsequently 
gave  up  to  enter  a  banking  firm.  He  was 
not  a  reformer,  but  he  was  a  good  citizen 
and  a  man  of  assured  position.  Thus  the 
first  office  he  came  to  hold  was  an  unsalaried 
membership  in  the  State  Board  of  Education. 

Three  years  after  Mr.  Colby's  graduation 
from  the  law  school  he  was  elected  as  one  of 
the  Republican  Assemblymen  from  Essex 
County.  He  was  just  as  much  of  a  machine 
man  then  as  any  of  his  colleagues.  He  could 
not  have  been  chosen  Republican  floor  leader 
in  his  second  term,  as  he  was,  unless  he  had 
combined  perfect  "safety"  from  the  corpora- 
tion standpoint  with  his  natural  qualities  of 
leadership  and  his  capacity  for  work.  The 
criticism  has  been  made  of  Colby's  speeches 
that  they  are  too  academic.  Yet  his  views 
on  political  problems  were  obviously  not 
formed  in  the  class  room  or  the  library,  but 
in  the  practical  activity  of  legislation. 

"  Why,  I  remember  so  well,"  he  said  in  a 
campaign  speech,  "  one  night  when  the 
McCarters  came  to  Trenton  and  a  dinner 


NEW  JERSEY'S  STIRRING  207 

was  given  which  the  machine  leaders  at- 
tended. After  dinner  they  drifted  into  the 
State  House  and  I  was  sent  for  and  told  by 
one  of  the  State  Committee  that  I  had  a  bill 
in  one  of  my  committees  which  was  a  very 
objectionable  bill  and  not  at  all  favourable  to 
our  friends  the  Public  Service  Corporation, 
and  I  was  told  to  be  sure  and  not  allow  that 
bill  to  be  reported.  I  said  '  all  right/  and  for 
weeks  the  press  of  the  State  cried  for  that 
bill  and  friends  of  the  measure  yelled  them- 
selves black  in  the  face,  and  all  the  time  that 
bill  was  in  my  desk  away  from  the  tumult  of 
the  *  madding  crowd '  and  there  it  remained. 
That  was  my  part  in  the  system,  a  part  for 
which  I  have  never  dared  to  ofler  an  excuse 
not  even  that  of  ignorance."  It  was  only 
"by  luck,"  as  he  afterwards  acknowledged, 
that  he  was  found  voting  against "  the  crooked 
promoters'  liability  act "  in  his  first  term. 

The  Assembly  leader's  definite  break  with 
the  machine  came  through  a  bill  which  had 
been  introduced  during  his  first  term,  affect- 
ing the  right  of  stockholders  to  bring  suits  in 
the  name  of  corporations.  Colby  had  voted 
for  the  bill  with  no  great  amount  of  study  of 
its  intricacies,  but  later,  when  some  one 
showed  him  the  results  of  an  analysis  of  its 
provisions,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it 


208  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

was  a  very  objectionable  measure.  It  failed 
of  passage  that  year,  and  at  the  next  session 
Colby  himself  was  asked  by  the  secret  spon- 
sors of  the  bill  to  introduce  it  and  thus  give 
it  at  the  start  the  prestige  of  the  floor  leader's 
support.  He  refused,  and  the  next  year, 
when  he  was  a  candidate  for  the  speakership 
he  was  opposed  by  the  power  of  the  financial- 
political  ring  and  defeated.  So  in  his  third 
term  Colby  was  an  out  and  out  insurgent 
After  a  year  of  open  warfare  in  the  Assembly, 
he  resolved  to  carry  the  fight  into  the  State 
Senate,  and,  taking  advantage  of  a  new  pri- 
mary law,  offered  himself  as  a  candidate  for 
the  Essex  County  senatorship. 

His  platform  declared  strongly  for  four  re- 
forms :  the  restriction  of  franchises  to  twenty- 
five  years  in  cities  of  the  first  class  and  thirty- 
five  years  elsewhere,  the  assessment  of  pub- 
lic utility  franchises  annually  and  their  taxa- 
tion at  the  regular  local  rates,  the  taxation  of 
railroad  real  estate  on  the  same  principles, 
and  the  expression  of  a  popular  choice  for 
United  States  senator  by  means  of  the  direct 
primary. 

At  last  the  commuters  were  awakened  to 
their  opportunities.  On  the  day  of  the  pri- 
mary automobiles  were  waiting  at  every 
station  to  whisk  them  to  the  polling  places. 


NEW  JERSEY'S  STIRRING  209 

By  far  the  larger  portion  of  them  had  never 
voted  in  a  primary  before  and  there  were  odd 
blunders  and  misunderstandings.  But  the 
new  law  protected  every  voter's  rights. 
Whereas  in  the  past,  eight  per  cent,  of  the 
Republicans  had  taken  part  in  their  primar- 
ies, eighty  per  cent,  participated  in  Essex 
County  in  1905.  Colby  won  the  nomination 
by  a  large  vote.  His  election  followed  in 
November,  more  or  less  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  in  January  began  a  session  of 
the  legislature  which  was,  as  Senator  Colby 
himself  said,  "in  many  ways  the  most 
noteworthy  in  the  history  of  New  Jersey." 
Although  the  legislature's  membership  had 
changed  very  little  except  in  respect  to  one 
county  delegation,  it  passed  two  of  the  most 
important  Colby  measures,  a  bill  for  taxing 
railroad  property  at  the  same  rates  as  other 
property — La  FoUette's  old  Wisconsin 
measure  in  substance — and  a  law  limiting 
future  franchises  to  twenty  years  except 
when  the  people,  by  direct  vote,  should  au- 
thorize a  forty-year  term. 

Considerable  as  were  these  results  at  the 
first  session,  a  long  list  of  reform  meas- 
ures remained  unpassed,  and  two  months 
after  adjournment  the  Republican  Committee 
for  Limited  Franchises  and  Equal  Taxation 


2IO  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

had  issued  a  new  declaration  of  principles, 
and  the  Colby  adherents  in  the  legislature 
an  appeal  for  renewed  support.  Then  in  July 
the  "  new  idea  "  was  organized  on  a  state- 
wide scale.  This  brought  to  Colby's  side 
men  of  standing  in  the  southern  and  central 
counties,  but  most  important  of  the  allies 
were  to  be  counted  the  representatives  from 
Jersey  City,  Mark  M.  Fagan,  the  mayor,  and 
George  L.  Record,  the  corporation  counsel, 
who  had  drafted  the  primary  law  under 
which  Colby's  initial  success  had  been  pos- 
sible. 

While  Colby  was  working  on  the  perpet- 
ual franchise  question  in  its  theoretical  and 
abstract  aspects,  Fagan,  as  mayor,  had  been 
wrestling  with  it  in  a  practical  way.  By  the 
end  of  his  second  term  he  had  gained  for 
himself  not  only  the  hostility  of  the  Pub- 
lic Service  interests,  but  of  the  local  powers 
of  both  parties  as  well.  Fagan  is  one  of 
those  rare  men  who  even  in  a  large  city  are 
able  to  come  close  to  the  mass  of  the  people 
as  neighbours  are  close  to  one  another  in  a 
small  town.  In  many  ways  he  and  Colby 
were  as  unlike  as  two  men  can  be.  Mayor 
Fagan  was  a  self-made  man  in  every  sense 
of  the  word.  He  had  been  a  newsboy  and 
had  become  an  undertaker.     His  first  small 


NEW  JERSEY'S  STIRRING  2U 

successes  in  politics  had  been  made  through 
a  peculiarly  intimate  sort  of  house-to-house 
and  man-to-man  canvassing.  "  Everybody 
I  know  is  for  Fagan,"  one  of  his  supporters 
once  said,  "  and  every  one  of  them  points  to 
a  different  trait  or  a  different  act  of  his  as  the 
reason.  Pagan's  administration  in  some 
way  seems  to  have  made  a  difference  in  the 
life  of  every  one  who  lives  under  it."  His 
appeal  to  the  people,  issued  in  1905  very 
shortly  after  that  of  Mr.  Jerome  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river,  resembled  that  remarkable 
document  strikingly  though  Pagan's  re- 
election was  in  fact  won  on  the  Republican 
ticket.  After  a  review  of  his  own  connec- 
tion with  the  bosses  and  the  corporations,  he 
said: 

"These  facts  and  many  others  too  nu- 
merous to  mention  have  convinced  me  that 
it  is  time  to  come  out  in  the  open  and  have  a 
square  stand-up  fight  against  the  Republi- 
can boss,  the  Democratic  boss,  and  the  trol- 
ley and  railroad  corporations  which  control 
them  both.  It  is  impossible  for  a  public 
official  to  get  along  permanently  with  a  boss, 
except  upon  terms  of  abject  obedience  and 
the  sacrifice  of  self-respect.  Personally  I  am 
tired  of  the  experiment.  I  am  sick  of  talk 
of  party  harmony,  which  means  surrender  of 


212  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

personal  independence  and  of  popular  rights. 
It  is  time  to  fight  the  boss  system  itself,  by 
which  unscrupulous  men  get  between  the 
people  and  the  public  officials  by  control  of 
the  party  machinery,  betray  the  people,  ac- 
quire riches  for  themselves,  and  attempt  to 
drive  out  of  public  life  all  who  do  not  take 
orders  from  the  boss  and  his  real  masters, 
the  corporations." 

The  "  new  idea  "  as  a  matter  of  course  was 
accused  of  merely  masking  the  old  idea  in 
the  hands  of  a  coterie  of  disgruntled  politi- 
cians. Colby  and  Fagan  were  accused  of 
aspiring  to  be  bosses  on  their  own  account 
But  Senator  Colby's  own  handling  of  the 
point  in  a  debate  with  an  opposition  senator 
at  Morristown  is  worth  quoting. 

"  I  understand  you  have  pledged  yourself 
to  vote  for  George  L.  Record  when  he  is  a 
candidate  for  United  States  senator  against 
Mr.  Dryden,"  said  Senator  Hillary. 

"  That  is  correct,"  acknowledged  Colby. 

"  Have  your  eleven  E^sex  County  Assem- 
blymen pledged  themselves  to  do  the  same  ?  " 
was  the  next  question. 

"  No,"  was  the  answer. 

"  Don't  you  think  they  should  ?  " 

"Yes." 


NEW  jersey's  stirring  213 

"Then  why  don't  you  make  them?" 
shouted  the  interrogator. 

"Because  I'm  not  a  machine  boss,"  re- 
torted Colby  amid  applause,  "and  I  don't 
intend  to  be  one." 

The  "  square  stand-up  fight "  in  the  pri- 
maries of  1906  resulted  in  a  defeat  for  Colby, 
Fagan  and  their  allies,  although  it  attracted 
so  much  national  interest  that  Senator  La 
Follette  came  all  the  way  from  Wisconsin  to 
lend  a  hand  in  it.  There  were  actual  losses 
of  localities  carried  in  1905,  without  sufficient 
gains  to  compensate.  Thus  the  Colby  move- 
ment was  checked  in  1906,  as  the  La  Follette 
movement  had  been  checked  in  its  early 
stages  just  ten  years  before.  But  there  re- 
main certain  compensations.  One  is  that 
the  issues  grow  plainer  the  longer  the  apathy 
of  the  state  continues.  Another  is  that  the 
experience  of  other  commonwealths  has  made 
familiar  and  almost  axiomatic  conceptions 
that  sounded  strange  and  unsettling  a  few 
years  ago.  The  league  of  Colby  and  Fagan 
may  not  be  the  agency  through  which  the 
reform  of  New  Jersey  is  to  come.  But  if  in 
the  encounters  that  have  gone  before  a  single 
repulse  had  meant  final  defeat,  a  record  of 
achievement  like  this  could  never  have  been 
written. 


XI 

THE  RESOURCES  OF  REFORM 

IT  is  a  national  habit  to  attribute  every- 
thing that  is  done  in  politics  or  public  life, 
good  or  bad,  to  some  indirect  and  hidden 
motive,  a  deal,  a  dicker  or  some  far  reaching 
influence.  Mayor  Brown  appoints  Mr.  Green 
to  office.  That  means  that  he  has  patched  up 
a  temporary  truce  in  his  old  feud  with  Senator 
White.  Assemblyman  Nobbs  suddenly  with- 
draws his  opposition  to  a  bill  which  he  voted 
against  last  winter ;  it  does  not  mean  that  he 
has  changed  his  mind  about  it,  but  that  Boss 
Noakes  and  would-be  Boss  Stokes  in  a  far- 
away city  are  temporarily  at  loggerheads. 
Nothing,  to  the  political  reporters,  means  what 
it  seems  to  mean.  This  sort  of  "inside" 
comment  and  revelation  has  helped  tremen- 
dously to  maintain  the  prestige  and  power  of 
the  mere  wire-puller  in  politics.  No  candi- 
date ever  appealed  to  a  high  or  disinterested 
sentiment  without  some  wise  hangers-on 
pointing  out  that  this  was  only  a  blind  for 
selfishness,  indirection  and  ambition. 

No  American  in  his  senses  would  think  of 
214 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  REFORM  215 

denying  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
stories  of  poHtical  machinations,  plots  and 
plans  are  and  always  have  been  true.  But 
even  if  every  one  of  them  were  literally  exact, 
the  general  philosophy  which  they  represent 
would  be  none  the  less  misleading.  What  it 
ignores  is  that  all  this  intrigue  and  manceuver- 
ing  is  carried  on  within  rigidly  restricted 
limits,  and  that  those  limits  are  set  by  the 
people  themselves.  So  long  as  the  politicians 
desire  to  win,  they  have  to  respect  what  might 
be  called  the  standards  set  by  the  men  who 
vote  their  ticket.  The  most  dangerous  situ- 
ation we  ever  have  in  American  politics  results 
when  the  minority  party  gives  up  the  hope  of 
winning  and  exists  merely  as  a  corrupt  ap- 
panage of  its  natural  rival. 

So  long  as  a  boss  or  a  coterie  of  bosses  de- 
sire victory  they  must  keep  within  the  lines 
of  conduct  which  their  constituency  will  toler- 
ate. Sometimes  for  long  periods  it  has  come 
about  that  the  constituency  would  tolerate  al- 
most anything.  At  present  the  lines  are 
drawn  very  tightly  everywhere.  Tickets 
must  be  put  up  that  can  make  at  least  a 
plausible  pretension  to  decency  and  independ- 
ence and  courage. 

Even  the  presidency  is  talked  about  as  if 
its  disposition  were  controlled  by  a  half-dozen 


2l6  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

of  powerful  politicians.  That  is  true  in  the 
sense  that  such  a  coterie  sometimes  picks  out 
the  man  who  is  to  be  the  choice  of  a  con- 
vention. But  it  does  not  and  cannot  make  the 
list  from  which  to  choose  him.  The  man  who 
would  "  vote  for  a  yellow  dog  if  the  party- 
nominated  him "  exists,  of  course.  But  in 
these  days  he  is  the  exception.  That  great 
good  natured  giant,  the  American  public  can 
be  imagined  as  saying  every  year  when  the 
nominations  are  being  "fixed  up,"  "Plot  away 
to  your  hearts'  content.  Scratch  each  others' 
backs.  Pull  all  the  wires  you  can  reach.  I 
am  very  tolerant  and  I  rather  enjoy  watching 
your  game.  But  if,  when  you're  through, 
you  don't  provide  me  with  candidates  of  big 
enough  calibre  and  decent  enough  records  to 
suit  my  very  modest  requirements,  out  you 
go  the  day  after  election."  The  boss  may 
designate  an  "  available  "  candidate,  but  it  is 
public  sentiment  that  makes  him  available. 

We  have  seen  this  power  of  putting  a  sum- 
mary end  to  deals  and  conspiracies  exercised 
by  the  people  in  various  places  and  under 
various  conditions.  The  farmers  who  followed 
Folk  and  La  Follette  have  made  common 
cause  with  the  "  minute  men  "  of  Philadelphia, 
Jerome's  young  lawyers  in  New  York,  and  the 
commuters  of   New  Jersey.     The  stories  of 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  REFORM  21 7 

those  movements  reveal  in  one  aspect  the 
power  of  the  people  to  depose  any  boss  or  set 
of  bosses,  temporarily  or  permanently,  when- 
soever they  please.  But  we  can  see  exactly 
the  same  force  at  work  even  when  there  is  no 
organization  in  the  form  of  a  party  with  a 
ticket  of  its  own. 

It  is  in  this  last  fashion  that  Chicago  has 
gone  about  its  wonderfully  successful  work  of 
reform  in  the  local  legislature.  No  Board  of 
Aldermen  in  our  national  history  ever  sunk 
very  much  lower  than  the  Chicago  Council 
some  ten  years  ago.  As  Edwin  Burritt  Smith 
has  described  the  situation,  fifty-eight  out  of 
sixty-eight  members  "  were  organized  into  a 
gang  for  public  and  corporate  plunder. 
Within  that  year  (1896)  it  granted  to  public 
service  corporations  and  blackmailing  syndi- 
cates, composed  in  part  of  its  own  members, 
six  great  franchises  of  untold  value,  in  shame- 
less disregard  of  the  public  protest  and  the 
mayor's  veto."  The  citizens  had  been  urged 
for  years  to  attend  the  primaries,  and  insist 
on  the  nomination  of  better  men,  but  they  did 
not  heed  the  advice,  and  the  "  gray  wolves  " 
in  the  council  were  unmolested. 

Municipal  scandals  reached  the  point 
where  a  reaction  of  some  sort  was  bound  to 
occur,     gut  it  did  not,  as  in  Philadelphia, 


2l8  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

take  the  form  of  a  sudden  and  violent  over- 
throw of  the  powers  of  evil.  Some  of  the  men 
most  zealous  for  the  purification  of  the  city 
simply  formed  a  small  organization  known 
as  the  Municipal  Voters'  League  of  Chicago.! 
It  began  its  existence  with  the  traditional 
Committee  of  One  Hundred,  composed  in 
this  instance  of  a  Democrat  and  a  Republi- 
can from  every  ward  with  the  additional 
members  chosen  at  large.  This  great  com- 
mittee, however,  never  met  but  twice  and  at, 
the  second  of  these  sessions,  it  voted  self- 
perpetuating  powers  to  a  small  executive 
committee.  This  committee,  the  members  of 
which  are  chosen  to  serve  three  years,  con- 
ducts the  active  work  of  the  League.  There 
is  also  a  general  membership  of  voters 
throughout  the  city,  but  the  voters  whom  the 
League  aims  to  influence  'have,  in  the  main, 
no  definite  connection  with  it  whatever. 

The  League  determined  its  own  function 
in  the  simplest  possible  way.  It  exists  to 
tell  the  people  of  Chicago  which  of  the  local 
candidates  each  year  are  fit  to  be  voted  for. 
The  parties  nominate  for  aldermen.  Then 
the  League  sends  out  its  investigators,  looks 
up  in  its  own  files  the  records  of  the  men 
who  are  seeking  reelection,  and  finally  issues 
its  recommendations  to  voters  all  over  the 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  REFORM          219 

city.  Sometimes  it  commends  both  of  the 
opposing  candidates  in  a  ward ;  sometimes  it 
rejects  both,  and  in  such  a  case  encourages 
the  candidacy  of  an  independent.  But  in 
no  case  is  there  any  element  of  partisanship 
in  its  selections.  Nor  does  it  take  sides  for 
or  against  a  man  without  giving  in  the  plain- 
est form  its  reasons  for  this  stand.  Its 
strength  lies  in  its  reputation  for  absolute 
fairness  and  disinterestedness.  Take  that 
away  and  the  League  would  enjoy  no  more 
prestige  than  any  political  club. 

The  League  has  never  obtruded  itself  be- 
tween elections.  At  first,  naturally,  it  could 
do  little  except  pass  upon  the  lists  of  candi- 
dates on  whom  the  parties  had  already  de- 
cided. But  year  by  year  since  then  it  has 
become]  a  force  in  the  preventing  of  unfit 
nominations.  Candidates  seek  its  endorse- 
ment with  an  earnestness  that  is  the  highest 
compliment  to  the  estimation  in  which  it  is 
held  by  the  practical  men  of  politics.  A  hint 
beforehand  often  dissuades  a  man  with  a 
vulnerable  record  from  running  for  office  at 
all.  For  this  reason  the  summary  of  candi- 
dates endorsed  and  candidates  opposed  each 
year  does  not  tell  the  whole  story.  But  the 
record  does  show  roughly,  in  briefest  form, 
the  degree  to  which  the  League  from  the 


220  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

first  secured  and  held  the  confidence  of  the 
city.  Following  are  the  number  of  alder- 
men elected  each  year,  the  number  of  those 
elected  who  were  favoured  by  the  League, 
those  opposed — which  meant  in  some  in- 
stances merely  a  preference  for  some  one  else, 
and  in  others  an  active  fight — and  those  re- 
garding whom  the  League  made  no  choice : 

Year    Elected    Favoured     Opposed    No  Action 


1896 

34 

25 

5 

4 

1897 

34 

17 

13 

4 

1898 

34 

23 

8 

3 

1899 

34 

25 

— 

- 

1900 

37 

25 

— 

— 

I90I 

36 

19 

9 

8 

1902 

36 

22 

8 

6 

1903 

35 

24 

8 

3 

1904 

35 

23 

8 

4 

1905 

36 

18 

13 

5 

1906 

36 

21 

7 

8 

These  favoured  candidates  came  from  all 
parties.  Republicans  and  Democrats  have 
been  found  in  all  the  columns.  A  good 
number  of  out  and  out  independents  have 
been  chosen  to  the  Council.  In  one  case 
where  the  League  considered  both  Republi- 
can and  Democratic  candidates  unfit  it  sup- 
ported the  Socialist  nominee  and  elected 
him.  In  1899,  when  there  was  a  general 
city    election,    the    League's    endorsement 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  REFORM  221 

elected  seventeen  Republican  aldermen  from 
wards  carried  by  the  Democratic  candidate 
for  mayor. 

But  the  complete  separation  of  municipal 
from  national  and  State  issues  has  not  been 
the  only  good  result  accomplished.  The  al- 
most unconsidered  minority  of  decent  men 
in  the  council  grew  to  one-third  of  the  body 
after  the  first  election  in  which  the  League 
was  at  work.  From  that  day  it  was  impos- 
sible for  the  "  gray  wolves  "  to  pass  their 
measures  over  the  mayor's  veto.  Two  years 
more  and  the  decent  element  had  a  clear 
majority,  and  since  1899,  with  a  two-thirds 
majority  of  their  own  for  much  of  the  time, 
the  honest  aldermen  have  annually  organized 
the  Board  on  a  non-partisan  basis,  and  made 
it  a  body  which  Chicago  trusts. 

The  "  reformer  "  is  characterized  by  tradi- 
tion as  an  impractical  being,  yet  one  of  the 
central  facts  about  the  general  reform  sweep 
is  that  in  it  the  old  rings  and  political  ma- 
nipulators have  encountered  opponents  no  less 
alert  and  resourceful  than  themselves.  They 
have  been  fairly  outmanoeuvered  at  their  own 
game,  and  it  is  this  fact  which  possibly  dif- 
ferentiates the  recent  movement  from  previ- 
ous reform  "  spasms." 

"  We  went  straight  ahead,"  said  one  of  the 


222  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

men  active  in  the  Philadelphia  Revolution, 
"  doing  the  simple,  direct  and  obvious  thing, 
and  letting  the  other  fellows  make  the  mis- 
takes." The  organization  blundered  from 
the  very  day  when  it  conceded  so  much  to 
adverse  public  opinion  as  to  order  a  post- 
ponement of  the  gas  lease  to  let  the  outbreak 
subside.  Weaver,  on  the  other  hand,  when 
he  removed  the  two  most  powerful  of  his 
directors  did  the  one  thing  which  would  most 
demoralize  the  "  gang  "  and  at  the  same  time 
most  inspire  the  forces  of  his  own  side.  In  the 
careers  of  all  the  leading  figures  in  this  move- 
ment there  are  instances  of  the  same  adroit 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends.  La  Follette's 
expedient  for  preventing  a  second  "  demon- 
stration" of  the  business  men  of  the  State 
against  his  rate-bill  by  putting  himself  in  a 
position  to  publish  the  names  of  those  ship- 
pers who  had  received  rebates,  was  the  plan 
of  a  consummate  politician.  Folk  managed 
his  negotiations  with  the  men  implicated  in 
the  St.  Louis  frauds  with  the  same  skill. 

The  Jerome  campaigri  in  New  York  saw 
one  beautiful  instance  of  how  even  a  piece  of 
hard  luck  in  politics  can  be  turned  to  good 
account  The  men  who  were  establishing 
Jerome  headquarters  throughout  New  York 
County  found  one  locality  in  which  it  ap- 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  REFORM  223 

peared  absolutely  impossible  to  rent  suitable 
rooms.  The  owners  of  halls  and  vacant  stores 
invariably  made  excuses  of  some  sort  when 
they  were  told  what  the  premises  were  wanted 
for.  This  was  the  famous  "  gas  house  "  dis- 
trict in  which  banner  Tammany  stronghold, 
Charles  F.  Murphy  had  been  "  leader  "  until 
he  succeeded  to  the  headship  of  the  entire 
organization.  Tammany  Hall  itself  is  in  this 
district.  Landlords  were  simply  loath  to  take 
chances  of  unpleasant  relations  with  their 
powerful  neighbour. 

At  first  it  was  proposed  to  skip  this  district 
and  look  after  its  organization  from  head- 
quarters somewhere  outside.  But  presently 
one  man  had  an  inspiration.  "Why  not 
have  movable  headquarters?"  he  asked. 
The  Jerome  workers  simply  secured  an  old 
truck  and  made  their  district  headquarters  in 
that.  Instead  of  rented  rooms  on  some  side 
street  they  could  locate  this  movable  office 
against  the  curb  right  in  the  shadow  of  Tam- 
many Hall  itself.  After  a  post  was  once 
chosen,  telephone  wires  were  strung  into  the 
wagon  and  it  was  from  here  that  the  district 
workers  reported  to  the  central  headquarters. 
In  charge  of  the  wagon  was  placed  a  "  re- 
formed gambler  "  who  had  joined  the  Jerome 
forces.    He  not  only  made  occasional  speeches 


224  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

to  the  groups  that  gathered  in  the  streets,  but 
sometimes  had  rougher  work  in  defeating  at- 
tempts which  were  made  repeatedly  to  wreck 
the  wagon,  as  was  actually  done  in  the  fore- 
noon of  election  day. 

The  signs  on  the  wagon  which  did  so 
much  to  rouse  the  resentment  of  the  "toughs" 
of  the  neighbourhood,  ran  as  follows.  It  may 
be  explained  that  Good  Ground  is  Mr.  Mur- 
phy's summer  residence  on  Long  Island. 

"For  District  Attorney, 

William   Trovers  Jerome. 

"  Headquarters  Eighteenth  Assembly  District. 

Why  won't  the  Landlords  Rent  Us  a 

Place  in  this  District  ?    No  Trouble 

elsewhere.     Our  headquarters  is  in  the  Van  of  the 

Campaign.     Did  C.  Francis  have  a  Good  Ground 

for  leaving  Jerome  off  the  ticket  ?     Who 

runs  New  York  Anyway?  " 

The  vehicle  so  inscribed  had  hardly  ap- 
peared in  the  district  when  the  reporters 
rushed  to  Mr.  Murphy  to  ask  if  it  were  true 
that  he  had  prevented  the  Jerome  cam- 
paigners from  securing  headquarters  in  the 
Eighteenth  district.  "Nonsense!"  he  ex- 
claimed. "  I'll  get  them  any  hall  they  want 
in  the  district." 

"Isn't  that  enough  of  a  confession?"  re- 
joined the  Jerome  workers. 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  REFORM    225 

Most  of  the  stories  told  here  are  stories  of 
success.  That  was  necessarily  true  because 
the  movement  for  righteousness  is  a  winning 
movement.  But  there  is  place  for  one  inci- 
dent to  show  that  the  clean  man  in  public 
affairs  can  show  his  spirit  in  abnegation  and 
chivalrous  acceptance  of  defeat,  as  well  as  in 
fighting  fairly  and  keeping  his  promises. 

Almost  every  year  sees  some  contested 
elections.  A  defeated  candidate  who  suspects 
fraud  fights  before  the  courts  or  before  some 
legislative  body  for  the  chance  to  have  the 
face  of  the  returns  changed  in  his  favour.  Too 
often  contestants,  when  appealing  to  tribunals 
of  their  own  political  faith  forget  that,  from 
the  moment  when  the  ballots  are  cast,  the 
political  question,  as  to  which  was  the  better 
man,  changes  to  the  legal  question,  which 
had  the  more  votes.  But  however  that  may 
be,  the  contestee  usually  fights  to  the  end  and 
employs  all  expedients  to  keep  in  office  as 
long  as  possible.  Very  frequently  a  member 
of  Congress  whose  seat  is  finally  decided  to 
belong  to  another  succeeds  in  serving  out  a 
full  half  of  his  term,  and  there  are  instances 
in  which  the  wrongful  holder  has  not  been 
unseated  until  a  few  days  before  the  expi- 
ration of  his  term. 

In  the  Fifty-eighth  Congress,  the  one  which 


226  AMERICA'S   AWAKENING 

convened  in  the  fall  of  1903,  the  list  of  con- 
tests included  one  in  a  Colorado  district. 
One  of  the  House  committees  set  to  work  to 
investigate.  John  F.  Shafroth,  who  had 
already  served  four  terms,  was  the  mem- 
ber whose  title  to  his  seat  was  contested. 
The  facts  brought  out  were  such  as  might 
have  furnished  the  excuse  for  most  protracted 
wrangling.  But  on  February  15,  1904, 
Mr.  Shafroth,  to  the  surprise  of  his  colleagues, 
rose  for  a  matter  of  "personal  privilege." 
This  concerned  his  own  election.  The  com- 
mittee, he  explained,  had  sent  for  the  ballot 
boxes  from  his  district,  and,  after  employing 
an  expert  to  examine  their  contents,  had  given 
the  contestee  an  opportunity  to  examine  the 
ballots.  "On  Thursday  afternoon  I  com- 
menced examining  the  ballots,"  he  said, 
"  and  continued  doing  so  during  Thursday, 
Friday  and  Saturday.  I  do  not  believe  that 
2,792  illegal  votes  were  cast  (that  being  my 
majority  as  returned)  yet  my  examination 
disclosed  the  fact  that  the  assurances  which  I 
had  received  as  to  the  regularity  of  the  votes 
in  many  of  the  precincts  were  not  true,  and 
that  there  were  illegal  votes  therein  which 
tainted  the  polls,  and  the  polls  so  tainted 
gave  me  a  greater  plurality  than  my  returned 
majority  in  the  district. 


THE  RESOURCES  OF  REFORM  227 

"  The  fact  was  a  bitter  disappointment  to 
me.  .  .  .  The  committee  has  given  me 
every  opportunity  to  ascertain  the  illegal  vote 
in  those  precincts.  Until  I  saw  the  ballots 
last  Thursday  I  thought  the  illegal  vote  could 
be  detected  and  separated  from  the  legal  vote, 
but  I  must  confess  my  inspection  has  con- 
vinced me  that  it  is  impossible  to  do  so  in  this 
case.  The  law  being  as  I  have  stated  and  the 
number  of  precincts  containing  majorities  for 
me  greater  than  my  returned  majority,  I  must 
say  that  if  I  were  a  judge  upon  the  bench 
considering  this  case  I  would  be  compelled 
to  find  against  myself,  and  as  the  vote  in  the 
contested  precincts  aggregates  less  than  one- 
tenth  of  the  votes  in  the  Congressional  dis- 
trict, I  would  be  compelled  to  find  that  ac- 
cording to  law,  Mr.  Bonynge  is  entitled  to  the 
seat.  I  did  my  best  to  have  an  honest  election. 
My  law  partner,  with  my  approval,  organized 
a  citizens'  committee  composed  of  both  Re- 
publicans and  Democrats  who  desired  a  fair 
election.  ...  I  have  always  been  in 
favour  of  pure  politics  and  when  the  test  is  ap- 
plied to  an  election  at  which  I  was  voted  for 
as  one  of  the  candidates  upon  the  ticket  I 
should  not  shirk  my  duty  or  change  my  con- 
victions concerning  honest  elections." 

After  Mr.  Shafroth  had  concluded  amid  the 


228  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

hearty  and  spontaneous  applause  from  both 
sides,  Mr.  Olmsted  of  Pennsylvania,  chairman 
of  the  Committee  which  had  investigated  the 
case,  paid  a  high  tribute  to  the  retiring  mem- 
ber. "  It  appears,"  he  said,  "  that  the  irregu- 
larity, while  it  carried  his  vote  along  with  it, 
was  not  made  for  his  special  benefit,  that  the 
irregular  action  was  not  made  with  any  special 
reference  to  him  but  his  vote  was  simply  an 
incident  because  his  name  was  upon  the 
ballots." 

It  is  not  on  any  account  to  be  anticipated 
that  the  record  of  reform  shall  be  an  un- 
broken succession  of  victories.  Setbacks 
come  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  it  is  far 
harder  to  avoid  both  selfish  motives  and  fac- 
tional differences  when  "in"  than  when 
"out."  The  "reformers"  have  traditionally 
been  considered  bad  losers,  slow  to  rally  after 
a  defeat.  But  if  the  new  movement  con- 
tinues to  display  the  resources  it  has  thus  far, 
courage,  directness,  ability  to  use  its  human 
instruments,  and  a  scrupulous  sense  of  honour 
in  victory  and  defeat,  its  complete  triumph 
may  rightly  be  called  a  question  of  time  only. 


XII 

THE  NEW  POLITICS 

"^'^AMPAIGN  lying  maybe  a  fine  art," 
I  said  an  intelligent  journalistic  ob- 

V^_>^  server,  in  1904,  "yet,  according  to 
some  close  observation  of  the  campaign 
now  closing,  there  have  been  very  few  clever 
lies  from  either  side  of  the  struggle.  Dean 
Swift  wrote  that  'as  universal  a  practice  as 
lying  is,  and  as  easy  a  one  as  it  seems,  I 
do  not  remember  to  have  heard  three  good 
lies  in  all  my  conversation,  even  from  those 
who  were  most  celebrated  in  that  faculty.* 
And  Dean  Swift  knew  something  of  the  poli- 
tics of  his  day.  There  surely  haven't  been 
three  good  lies  in  the  present  campaign ;  they 
have  all  been  stupid  as  well  as  vicious." 

If  there  was  a  lie  in  that  campaign  which 
made  any  pretensions  to  ingenuity  or  origi- 
nality it  was  the  story  circulated  for  a  brief 
while  in  Colorado  that  President  Roosevelt 
when  President  of  the  Police  Board  in  New 
York  had  invented  for  special  use  upon  strik- 
ing workmen  a  police  club  which,  at  the 
touch  of  a  button,  became  immediately  stud- 
ded with  formidable  spikes,  and  that  the 
229 


230  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

United  States  patent  office  had  refused  to 
allow  a  patent  on  this  contrivance,  apparently 
because  of  its  inhumanity.  A  few  distortions 
of  statements  or  statistics,  a  few  unauthorized 
signatures  to  documents  and  manifestos, 
made  up  really  the  sum  total  of  mendacity  in 
the  canvass  that  ended  with  President  Roose- 
velt's election. 

The  disappearance  of  the  "roorback"  is 
only  the  symptom  of  a  real  general  improve- 
ment in  the  standards  of  our  politics.  It  has 
been  pointed  out  in  an  earlier  chapter  that 
practices  resorted  to  openly  two  or  three  gen- 
erations ago  are  to-day  indulged  in  secretly 
if  at  all.  The  recent  sudden  insistence  on 
something  better  than  the  slanders,  the  mis- 
representations, the  traps,  the  devious  meth- 
ods of  the  old  days,  was  merely  an  additional 
impulse  given  to  a  movement  that  had  been 
in  progress,  though  slowly,  for  several  dec- 
ades. We  cannot  weigh  or  measure  the 
gain  ;  but  we  can  give  attention  to  some  of 
the  ways  in  which  the  gain  has  been  espe- 
cially manifest — ^the  beginnings,  perhaps,  of 
an  era  when  independence  and  honour  and 
frankness  shall  be  the  rule  of  public  life. 

Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the 
present  period  than  the  decline  of  partisan- 
ship in  respect  to  the  work  of  government, 


THE  NEW  POLITICS  23 1 

whether  in  the  executive  or  the  legislative 
field.  The  time  is  passed  when  it  was  thought 
the  duty  of  the  minority  in  Congress  or 
a  State  legislature  to  fight  against  the  bills  of 
the  session  simply  and  solely  because  they 
emanated  from  the  party  in  power.  "To 
vote  with  the  enemy  whenever  they  favour 
any  of  the  things  for  which  we  stand,"  is  the 
policy  that  has  lately  been  enunciated  by  the 
men  high  in  the  councils  of  both  parties. 
What  is  more,  it  is  a  principle  that  has  been 
acted  on. 

At  the  close  of  the  first  session  of  the 
Fifty-ninth  Congress  in  June,  1906,  President 
Roosevelt  issued  a  statement  congratulating 
the  country  on  the  valuable  legislation  that 
had  been  enacted.  The  session  had,  he  said, 
"  done  more  substantial  work  for  good  than 
any  other  Congress  has  done  at  any  session 
since  I  became  familiar  with  public  affairs." 
He  then  named  eight  especial  measures  as 
deserving  of  praise,  the  railroad  rate  bill,  the 
meat-inspection  bill,  the  pure-food  bill,  the 
free  alcohol  bill,  consular  reform,  Panama 
canal  legislation,  the  naturalization  bill  and 
joint  statehood.  It  was  indeed  a  record  of 
progressive  legislation  without  equal.  And 
the  country  as  a  whole  could  all  the  more  be 
congratulated  upon  it  for  the  reason  that  only 


232  AMERICA'S   AWAKENING 

one  of  the  eight  bills  even  so  much  as  pre- 
tended to  be  a  partisan  measure. 

Four  of  them,  the  meat  inspection,  con- 
sular, free  alcohol  and  naturalization  bills 
were  passed  without  roll-call  or  division  in 
either  House  or  Senate.  The  rate-bill  on  its 
final  passage  had  all  the  votes  from  both 
sides  except  for  seven  Republicans  in  the 
House,  two  Democrats  and  one  Republican 
in  the  Senate.  The  Pure  Food  bill  was  like- 
wise voted  for  by  all  the  Democratic  sena- 
tors but  three.  The  type  of  the  Panama 
canal  was  fixed  by  a  non-partisan  division  in 
the  House,  no  roll  being  called,  while  in  the 
Senate,  the  prevailing  side  included  thirty- 
five  Republicans  and  one  Democrat,  who 
outvoted  ten  Republicans  and  twenty-one 
Democrats.  There  remains  the  joint  State- 
hood bill.  That  was  designed  as  a  straight 
party  measure,  but  on  passage  in  the  House 
forty-three  Republicans  voted  with  the  Demo- 
crats against  it.  In  the  Senate  a  motion  to 
leave  out  all  mention  of  Arizona  and  New 
Mexico  was  carried  by  a  combination  of 
twelve  Republicans  and  twenty-five  Demo- 
crats against  a  solid  Republican  opposition 
of  thirty-five.  The  two  houses  having  disa- 
greed, the  bill  went  to  conference,  and  in  its 
final  form  included  with  immediate  Statehood 


THE  NEW   POLITICS  '  233 

for  Oklahoma-Indian  Territory,  the  so-called 
"  Foraker  amendment,"  permitting  Arizona 
and  New  Mexico  to  vote  separately  on  the  ac- 
ceptance of  combined  statehood.  This  clause 
itself  had  previously  been  adopted  by  the 
Senate  through  the  union  of  twenty-three 
Democrats  and  nineteen  Republicans  against 
the  remaining  twenty-nine  Republicans. 
Thus  on  the  only  one  of  the  measures  named 
by  the  President  upon  which  party  lines  were 
drawn  at  all,  about  a  third  of  the  majority 
party  regularly  voted  with  the  other  side. 
This  was  emphatically  a  session  in  which 
members  of  both  House  and  Senate  acted  as 
independent  men  and  not  as  members  of 
any  autocratic  organization. 

The  same  absence  of  partisanship  has 
characterized  the  law-making  activities  of  the 
several  States.  When  the  various  legisla- 
tures met  in  1905  there  were,  for  the  first 
time,  probably,  in  the  history  of  this  country, 
five  States  with  Democratic  governors  and 
Republican  legislatures.  The  number  was 
reduced  to  four  by  the  unseating  of  Alva 
Adams  in  Colorado.  Yet  the  other  Demo- 
cratic governors  got  along  quite  as  well  with 
their  opposition  legislatures  as  the  average 
executives  in  States  where  there  had  been  a 
clean  sweep.     There  was  not  a  deadlock  in 


234  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

any  of  the  States  with  divided  governments. 
In  Missouri,  where  the  Senate  was  Demo- 
cratic and  the  House  Republican  it  was  the 
latter  body  which  gave  Governor  Folk  the 
more  loyal  support,  especially  on  the  bills  to 
extend  the  statute  of  limitations  in  bribery 
cases,  and  to  prohibit  race-track  gambling. 
In  Massachusetts,  Governor  Douglas  actually 
vetoed  fewer  bills  than  any  of  his  Republican 
predecessors  who  had  dealt  with  legislatures 
of  their  own  party  faith.  The  Republican 
governors  of  Michigan  and  Indiana  vetoed 
eleven  and  seventeen  respectively  of  the  bills 
passed  by  the  Republican  legislatures  of  those 
States ;  Governor  Johnson  of  Minnesota, 
though  a  Democrat,  was  able  to  approve  all 
but  one  of  those  passed  by  his  State's  Repub- 
lican legislature.  While  Governor  Toole  of 
Montana  vetoed  ten  bills,  only  two  of  these 
really  went  through  the  legislature  on  a  par- 
tisan basis. 

There  is  no  support  in  the  recent  history 
of  this  country  for  the  time-worn  plea  that 
the  election  of  the  "  whole  ticket "  is  neces- 
sary in  order  to  carry  forward  any  particular 
piece  of  good  work  that  may  be  under  way. 
That  argument  had  its  force  in  the  day^  of 
factious  opposition.  To-day,  when  Demo- 
crats and  Republicans  do  not  hesitate  to  vote 


THE  NEW  POLITICS  235 

together  for  what  they  beUeve  to  be  right, 
and  party  "  pressure "  becomes  yearly  less 
potent,  it  has  become  an  appeal  more  to 
prejudice  than  to  reason.  As  a "  matter  of 
fact,  in  such  divided  governments  as  have 
just  been  considered,  the  absolute  necessity 
for  getting  along  somehow  and  attending  to 
their  work,  often  puts  both  governor  and 
legislators  in  the  best  possible  spirit  for  pub- 
lic spirited  service.  The  governor  cannot 
cajole  obstinate  members  by  the  same  means 
which  he  could  employ  if  they  owed  allegiance 
to  the  same  party  powers,  while  from  the 
other  side  the  governor's  own  future  cannot 
possibly  be  in  the  hands  of  the  legislative 
leaders  with  whom  he  has  to  deal.  Both  can 
give  their  best  thought  to  the  interests  of  the 
people. 

The  convention  which  nominated  Gover- 
nor Folk  of  Missouri  has  already  been  de- 
scribed. There  remains  one  feature  of  it 
which  may  be  touched  upon  in  this  connec- 
tion. That  was  the  work  of  the  Credentials 
Committee.  Any  politician  will  agree  that  it 
is  the  control  of  the  original  organization  of  a 
convention  or  a  legislative  body  that  counts. 
For  if  one's  own  partisans  number  one  more 
than  those  of  the  other  side  when  the  chair- 
man calls  the  first  session  to  order,  it  is  an 


236  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

easy  matter  to  unseat  enough  opponents  to 
create  a  safe-working  majority.  It  is  one  of 
the  established  rules  of  the  game  that  con- 
tests shall  be  decided,  whenever  necessary,  in 
the  interests  of  the  side  that  controls  the 
Committee  on  Credentials.  The  Republican 
and  Democratic  National  Conventions  which 
met  a  few  weeks  before  the  State  Convention 
of  Missouri  in  1904,  had  each  important  con- 
tests to  decide,  the  Republicans  in  regard  to 
La  Follette's  delegation  from  Wisconsin  and 
the  Democrats  in  regard  to  rival  delegations 
from  Illinois.  It  was  repeatedly  charged  and 
generally  believed  that  the  decisions  in  both 
instances  were  based  rather  upon  party  ex- 
pediency than  impartial  justice.  If,  now,  the 
Folk  men  in  control  of  the  Missouri  conven- 
tion had  overriden  their  beaten  opponents 
and  given  themselves  the  benefit  of  every 
disputed  point  in  the  make-up  of  the  conven- 
tion, they  would  merely  have  been  following 
the  precedents.  **  Regularity,"  that  distinc- 
tion beyond  all  price,  would  still  have  been 
theirs,  even  if  they  threw  out  every  contested 
delegate  belonging  to  the  other  side.  While 
Mr.  Folk's  own  nomination  was  conceded, 
the  unseating  of  the  delegations  from  the 
other  side  would  have  made  it  possible  to 
nominate  for  the  rest  of  the  ticket  candidates 


THE  NEW  POLITICS  237 

in  sympathy  with  him.  As  it  was,  many 
delegates  had  received  instructions  simulta- 
neously for  Folk  and  one  or  another  of  the 
candidates  for  minor  offices  identified  with 
the  old  machine.  So  possession  of  the  seats 
which  Simon  pure  Folk  men  were  contesting, 
meant  a  very  real  advantage  to  his  cause. 

But  instead  of  determining  these  contests 
off-hand  in  the  way  that  interest  dictated,  the 
Credentials  Committee  of  that  convention  sat 
with  only  the  most  necessary  intermissions 
for  two  days  and  two  nights  hearing  evidence 
in  the  various  contests.  A  stern,  white- 
bearded  chairman  fairly  cowed  the  weary 
and  impatient  crowd  that  packed  the  old 
Senate  chamber  where  the  hearings  were 
held.  As  the  night  hours  dragged  on,  bats 
sailed  in  now  and  again  through  the  win- 
dows to  flutter  about  on  uncertain  wing. 
The  contesting  Folk  men  had  literally  barrels 
of  affidavits  and  other  evidence  regarding 
fraud  and  intimidation  at  the  primaries. 
"What  is  your  strongest  case?"  inquired  one 
of  the  leading  men  of  the  Committee.  The 
contestants'  representative  named  one  ward. 
"  Very  well,  we'll  hear  that."  -**  Now  I  move," 
said  the  same  spokesman  after  the  arguments 
were  concluded,  "  that  the  Folk  delegates  be 
seated   from  this   ward,   and   the  anti-Folk 


238  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

delegates  from  every  other  ward  of  the  City 
of  St.  Louis."  The  Committee  was  Folk's 
Committee,  the  evidence  was  much  more 
than  enough  to  serve  for  a  pretext,  and  yet 
the  motion  prevailed.  "  It  takes  more  cour- 
age to  decide  against  friends  than  against 
enemies,"  declared  another  member,  as  he 
cast  his  vote.  When  the  roll  of  the  conven- 
tion was  made  up,  it  showed  that  out  of  159 
contested  seats,  this  conscientious  committee 
had  given  only  thirty-three  to  its  own  side. 
A  word  from  Mr.  Folk  would  probably  have 
induced  enough  of  the  doubly-instructed 
delegates  to  disregard  their  pledges  and  re- 
ject the  undesirable  nominees,  but  he  refused 
to  interfere.  The  ticket  selected  was  not  a 
pure  Folk  ticket.  The  people  of  Missouri 
who  voted  for  the  Circuit  Attorney  himself, 
rejected  it  entire,  and  the  new  Democratic 
Governor  was  inaugurated  in  January  with  a 
full  complement  of  Republican  officials  about 
him.  Attorney-General  Hadley  who  con- 
ducted the  Standard  Oil  investigation  in  New 
York,  was  one  of  these  Republicans. 

It  is  naturally  to  be  expected  that  the  rank 
and  file  will  show  more  response  to  new  po- 
litical ideals  than  the  old  partisan  leaders. 
The  typical  politician  who  makes  his  calling 
a  trade  is  an  opportunist.     He  works  under 


THE  NEW  POLITICS  239 

conditions  as  he  finds  them.  In  Missouri  we 
have  seen  how  the  "  old  crowd  "  accepted  the 
verdict  of  the  people  in  favour  of  the  kind  of 
politics  which  Folk  represented,  and  followed 
his  lead  in  giving  them  that  kind.  A  retro- 
gression in  political  standards  they  would 
have  taken  advantage  of  in  the  same  way, 
though  even  in  "slumps"  of  this  sort  it  is 
doubtful  if  a  community  ever  sinks  back  quite 
to  the  level  from  which  it  started. 

The  voters  of  Delaware  used  to  employ  a 
homely  euphemism  to  express  the  difference 
between  the  bought  and  the  unbought  voter. 
The  one  "  charged  for  his  vote,"  the  other 
"voted  his  sentiments."  It  will  naturally  be 
asked  whether  the  new  political  standards 
will  apply  in  any  way  to  the  actually  venal 
voter.  At  the  bottom  of  the  scale  in  any 
classification  of  political  morality  would  be 
placed,  of  course,  those  voters  who  regard 
their  votes  virtually  as  merchandise,  which 
they  will  sell  to  anybody  for  the  highest  price 
they  can  get.  There  is  not  much  to  be  hoped 
from  this  type  under  any  circumstances, 
though,  as  some  drunkards  reform,  so  pre- 
sumably one  of  these  creatures  may  occasion- 
ally respond  to  the  right  influences.  But  just 
above  the  absolutely  mercenary  element  in 
the  electorate  there  exists,  especially  in  the 


240  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

older  States,  a  stratum  in  which  remains  a 
little  more  of  self-respect.  All  through  the 
villages  and  small  towns  of  New  England 
and  the  middle  States  are  to  be  found  numbers 
of  men  who  are  strong  and  outspoken  sup- 
porters of  one  party  or  the  other,  and  yet  who 
for  years  past  have  not  been  willing  to  vote 
at  all  unless  they  were  paid  for  it.  It  is  as 
strange  a  condition  to  the  psychologist  as  to 
the  moralist.  These  men  are  not  without 
political  convictions  of  a  sort ;  they  would  re- 
sent as  a  bribe  the  offer  of  money  from  the 
other  side,  yet  they  have  insisted  on  being 
recompensed  for  the  time  spent  in  voting  at 
the  same  rate  as  for  the  time  spent  in  the  hay- 
field  or  at  the  work-bench.  Now,  as  regards 
men  of  this  type  there  is  at  least  an  interesting 
possibility. 

It  is  conceded  by  every  one  that  the  next 
few  elections  will  be  conducted  with  campaign 
funds  very  considerably  smaller  than  those 
expended  in  the  last  ten  years  or  more. 
Committees  which  were  once  supplied  liber- 
ally with  funds  by  corporations  of  various 
kinds  are  now  chiefly  dependent  on  the  volun- 
tary contributions  of  the  faithful.  The  Con- 
gressional Committees  of  both  parties  at  the 
time  this  sentence  is  written,  are  making 
especial  efforts  to  secure  dollar  contributions 


THE  NEW  POLITICS  24I 

for  the  canvass  of  1906.  Yet  estimates  of  the 
RepubHcan  campaign  fund  of  1896  varied 
from  $6,000,000  to  $16,500,000  and  three- 
fourths  of  the  entire  body  of  citizens  who 
voted  for  Roosevelt  would  have  to  put  in  their 
dollars  to  approximate  even  the  lesser  sum,  a 
proportion  not  in  the  least  likely  to  be  reached 
by  the  public  appeals. 

So  the  party  managers  are  left  with  much 
less  means  for  the  more  sordid  work  of  "  prac- 
tical politics"  at  the  very  time  when,  by 
reason  of  an  awakened  national  conscience, 
these  methods  might  be  expected  to  become 
less  effective.  Suppose  that  the  half-venal 
partisans  are  dropped  from  the  pay-roll  for 
the  mere  sake  of  economy,  it  is  not  altogether 
visionary  to  expect  that  some  of  them  through 
shame  or  genuine  conviction  may  return  to  the 
habit  of  casting  their  votes  for  the  party  they 
believe  in  without  asking  for  a  dollar.  It  is 
hard  to  believe  that  every  man  who  has  taken 
money  "  for  his  time "  on  election  day  will 
keep  away  from  the  polls  entirely  unless  the 
old  gratuity  is  repeated  every  year. 

Agreements  between  the  party  managers 
of  both  sides  to  restrict  the  spending  of 
money  have  been  characteristic  of  the  1906 
campaign.  Such  praiseworthy  compacts 
have  been  reported  from  widely  separated 


242  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

localities  in  both  the  west  and  the  east.  In 
Indiana,  nearly  two  months  before  election, 
the  Republican  and  Democratic  central  com- 
mittees in  fifty-six  out  of  ninety-two  counties 
had  signed  and  filed  with  the  clerks  of  the 
several  circuit  courts  agreements  not  to  rec- 
ognize the  purchasable  element  in  any  way 
whatever.  Not  only  did  they  bind  them- 
selves not  to  buy  votes  directly,  but  not  to 
give  a  man  who  was  known  to  have  sold  his 
vote  any  position  whatever  in  the  campaign 
or  election  organization. 

The  party  armies,  for  a  good  many  years 
back,  have  contained  a  most  inordinate 
proportion  of  mercenaries.  The  "  legitimate ' ' 
expenses  of  campaigning  came  to  include  a 
great  many  items  for  services  which  workers 
ought  to  be  glad  to  do  for  nothing.  "  The 
volunteer  in  politics  is  dead,"  wrote  a  veteran 
Washington  correspondent  after  a  tour  of  the 
western  States  just  before  the  election  of  1904. 
"Workers  contract  for  their  time  by  the  hour. 
Private  teams  which  used  to  be  driven  by 
their  owners  from  town  to  town  on  prelimi- 
nary canvassing  tours  with  no  cost  to  candi- 
dates or  committees  must  now  be  regularly 
hired  as  if  they  belonged  to  a  livery  stable. 
Even  the  ground  on  which  out-of-door  popular 
gatherings  are  held  often  have  to  be  rented, 


THE  NEW  POLITICS  243 

and  of  men  belonging  to  the  party  renting 
them."  In  one  far  western  State  it  was  com- 
puted that  a  party  would  need  for  "  legitimate  " 
expenses  alone  about  a  dollar  to  every  voter 
in  the  State. 

When  that  sort  of  thing  became  the  regu- 
lar rule  in  politics  throughout  the  country,  it 
could  not  but  be  the  most  powerful  discour- 
agement imaginable  of  genuine  enthusiasm 
and  helpfulness  among  a  party's  rank  and  file. 
The  analogy  of  the  mercenary  army  is  an 
exact  one.  So  long  as  the  work  was  regularly 
done  by  hired  men,  no  one  would  volunteer 
to  do  it  out  of  patriotism.  Every  dollar  that 
was  spent  along  the  lines  just  indicated 
must  have  helped  to  kill  the  spirit  of  willing 
unselfishness,  which  can  be  made  as  strong 
in  a  party  as  in  a  club  or  a  college. 

Whatever  may  be  true  of  the  actually  venal 
element  in  our  politics,  here  is  a  field  where 
there  is  every  reason  to  anticipate  a  genuine 
change  in  standards.  There  are  already 
visible  signs  of  such  a  change. 


/ 


XIII 
HUMDRUM  WORK  FOR  GOOD 

"     j4     T  least,"  once  said  Governor  Penny- 
L\      packer  of  Pennsylvania,  "the  laws 
-■^    ^  put  on  the  statute  books  during  my 
term  will  parse  I  " 

It  was  a  quaint  and  characteristic  way  of 
expressing  the  value  of  some  of  the  hard  con- 
scientious work  that  is  put  into  many  a  public 
man's  duties  without  results  that  the  ordinary 
citizen  ever  notices. 

The  late  Alexander  C.  Botkin,  chairman  of 
the  Commission  to  Revise  the  United  States 
Statutes,  shortly  before  the  end  of  that  gigan- 
tic task  expressed  his  opinion  strongly  of  the 
results  of  careless  lawmaking.  "The  statute 
books  have  been  disfigured,"  he  said,  "  by 
slovenly,  ambiguous  and  nugatory  pro- 
visions to  an  extent  that  surprises  every  one 
who  comes  to  study  the  matter."  A  publish- 
ing firm  which  issued  a  compilation  of  the 
federal  statutes  a  few  years  ago,  encountered 
the  same  difficulties  without  having  the  power 
to  correct  them.  "  In  preparing  this  compi- 
lation," said  its  preface,  "  the  editors  have 
found  a  number  of  amusing  proofs  that  the 
244 


HUMDRUM  WORK  FOR  GOOD    245 

complexity  of  bills  passed  was  too  much  even 
for  members  of  Congress  to  unravel.  They 
have  come  upon  amendments  to  laws  that 
had  been  repealed,  amendments  that  over- 
look previous  amendments,  new  laws  that  re- 
enacted  existing  and  forgotten  laws,  etc." 

The  reference  here  is  to  laws  that  in 
Pennypacker's  phrase  "would  not  parse." 
On  one  occasion  Judge  Botkin  offered  to 
wager  an  oyster  supper  that  his  two  col- 
leagues on  the  Commission  could  not  find  out 
from  the  army  statutes  the  legal  rate  of  pay 
for  a  cook  in  the  corps  of  engineers.  They 
hunted  for  a  week  and  then  gave  up,  when 
he  showed  them  the  passage  upon  which  he 
had  accidentally  stumbled.  Now  the  reason 
why  that  bit  of  information  was  tucked  away 
where  no  one  could  find  it,  was  presumably 
that  some  hurried  legislator  in  a  bygone  day 
had  not  taken  the  trouble  to  straighten  out 
the  phraseology  or  to  look  up  the  old  statute 
into  which  his  new  provision  had  been  inserted. 

There  is  perhaps  no  work  of  equal  value 
which  is  less  appreciated  than  that  which  is  ex- 
pended upon  the  detail  work  of  legislation.  It 
is  a  favourite  device  of  the  party  out  of  power 
to  print  booklets  of  blank  paper  under  the 
title,  "What  has  Congress  done?"  or  "What 
has  the  Legislature  done  ?  "    Yet  at  the  session 


246  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

least  prolific  of  general  legislation  there  is  a 
prodigious  amount  of  work  to  be  done  merely 
in  providing  for  the  financial  needs  of  the 
government  during  the  coming  fiscal  year. 
There  are  several  hundred  millions  of  appro- 
priations to  be  scrutinized  at  Washington 
every  year.  The  new  member  and  the  drone 
may  have  an  idle  time  enough  at  the  Capitol, 
but  the  veterans,  the  trusted  and  important 
men,  work  hard  and  steadily  and  for  long 
hours  from  the  day  of  assembling  until  the 
hour  when  the  last  presidential  pen  is  pre- 
sented to  some  one  interested  in  the  bill  which 
it  signed. 

Merely  to  keep  up  with  the  routine  of  legis- 
lation is  a  task  that  becomes  increasingly 
difficult.  There  were  1,020  House  and  560 
Senate  bills  introduced  in  i860- 1862.  In 
1903-1905  there  were  15,576  House  bills  and 
5,687  Senate  bills.  About  one  bill  out  of  nine 
is  destined  to  pass.  Even  in  the  State  legis- 
latures the  amount  and  intricacy  of  legislation 
becomes  appalling.  Statistics  collected  by 
Don  E.  Mowry  show  that  in  the  various  legis- 
latures of  1905  the  number  of  bills  introduced 
for  consideration  varied  from  377  in  Idaho  to 
2,134  ill  California,  one-third  more  in  the  lat- 
ter State  alone  than  the  whole  national  legis- 
lature had  to  consider  half  a  century  ago. 


HUMDRUM  WORK  FOR  GOOD         247 

The  reproach  of  careless  legislation  is  com- 
bined with  the  reproach  of  unintelligent  legis- 
lation. While  it  is  one  of  the  supposed  ad- 
vantages of  our  American  state  governments 
that  governmental  experiments  can  be  tried 
on  a  small  scale,  and  for  the  benefit  of  all,  the 
States  have  hitherto  profited  very  little  by 
each  other's  experiences.  And  there  has  been 
a  more  positive  danger  in  the  fact  that  our 
legislative  bodies,  ill  informed  in  regard  to 
comparative  legislation,  have  too  often  had  to 
depend  for  such  knowledge  as  they  do  pos- 
sess upon  the  statements  of  those  who  are 
not  disinterested — namely  the  lobbyists. 

At  a  hearing  on  an  important  bill  before 
a  Congressional  Committee  a  few  years  ago, 
when  the  representatives  of  all  the  "  interests  " 
affected  favourably  or  adversely  by  the  pend- 
ing bill  had  presented  their  views,  an  in- 
dividual arose  in  the  rear  of  the  room  and 
asked  to  be  heard  in  his  turn.  "  Whom  do 
you  represent?"  asked  the  chairman,  and 
when  he  answered,  "  I  represent  the  general 
public,"  the  whole  committee  laughed,  the 
notion  was  so  unusual.  It  is  the  right,  if  not 
the  duty,  of  any  individual  or  corporation  to 
present  its  views  before  the  legislative  body 
whose  action  will  affect  its  future.  There  is 
no  more  legitimate  occupation  than  this  form 


248  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

of  lobbying.  Yet  because  the  people  at  large 
have  no  representatives  of  this  kind,  our 
laws  too  often  represent  merely  the  resultant 
of  the  views  of  rival  business  interests  in- 
stead of  the  welfare  of  the  people  as  a 
whole. 

Dr.  Charles  McCarthy  expressed  the  situ- 
ation so  strikingly  in  a  paper  read  before  the 
last  meeting  of  the  American  Library  Asso- 
ciation that  his  words  may  be  inserted  here  : 

"  John  Jones  comes  to  the  legislature.  He 
is  a  good  citizen,  a  man  of  hard  sense,  well 
respected  in  his  community.  He  enters  sud- 
denly from  the  quiet  of  his  native  village  into 
a  new  life.  He  comes  to  live  in  a  new  com- 
munity. He  is  dogged  about  and  worried 
by  office  seekers.  His  old  friends  and 
advisers  are  not  around  to  help  him.  He 
finds  that  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  learn  the 
ropes.  He  finds  that  if  he  is  to  represent 
his  district  he  must  introduce  bills,  and  that 
he  must  in  some  way  get  those  bills  through 
the  legislature.  He  must  first  of  all  get 
those  bills  drawn,  and  never  having  drawn  a 
bill  in  his  life,  and  not  knowing  how  such 
things  should  be  done,  it  is  very  hard  work 
for  him.  He  is  confronted  by  two  thousand 
bills  on  two  thousand  subjects,  legal  and 
economic,     Complex    questions    which    are 


HUMDRUM  WORK  FOR  GOOD         249 

not  settled  by  the  greatest  thinkers  to-day- 
are  hurled  at  his  head.  Even  scientific  sub- 
jects that  the  chemist  or  the  physician  or  the 
man  of  science  have  a  hard  time  to  deal  with 
must  be  met  by  our  John  Jones,  and  that  in 
the  hurry  and  rush  of  committee  work  and  of 
his  efforts  to  take  care  of  the  multitudinous 
duties  placed  upon  him.  If  he  is  honest,  he 
will  try  to  draw  his  bills  himself,  or  else  he 
pays  somebody  to  do  it  for  him ;  but  the 
easiest  way  is  to  consult  somebody  else.  He 
finds  around  him  bright  men,  well-paid 
lawyers,  men  of  legal  standing,  who  are 
willing  to  help  him  in  every  way.  It  is 
easier  to  consult  these  bright  men;  and 
often,  if  he  does  it,  he  is  lost.  It  is  seldom 
that  he  finds  a  true  friend.  They  are  there 
to  look  out  for  their  own  interests,  and  John 
Jones  is  legitimate  prey.  To  get  hold  of 
him  is  their  business.  If  he  is  honest,  and 
by  some  Spartan  courage  and  some  sterling 
honesty  fights  his  way  through,  pushes  his 
bills  on  to  become  laws,  those  bills  having  to 
do  often  with  complex,  technical  subjects  and 
being  drawn  by  a  man  unskilled  in  law,  are 
thrown  out  by  the  courts." 

One  of  the  needs  of  the  immediate  future 
is  everywhere  some  method  by  which  this 
same  new  senator  or  assemblyman  can  be 


250  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

kept  informed  on  the  subject  matter  of  legis- 
lation, without  depending  on  the  lobbyist  for 
his  facts.  Nearly  all  the  States  have  State 
Libraries.  In  New  York  and  some  of  the 
older  States  these  libraries  turn  out  a  good 
deal  of  material  on  legislative  subjects,  but 
Wisconsin  has  taken  the  lead  in  trying  a  plan 
very  much  simpler  and  less  expensive.  Some 
time  before  the  legislature  meets,  each  mem- 
ber receives  a  letter  from  the  Legislative 
Reference  Department  of  the  Free  Library 
Commission.  "  If  you  will  inform  us  of  any 
subjects  you  wish  to  investigate,"  says  this 
letter,  "  as  far  as  we  have  the  material,  time 
and  means  we  will  tell  you — 

"  I.  What  States  have  passed  laws  on  any 
particular  subject. 

"2.  Where  bills  for  similar  laws  are  under 
discussion. 

"  3.  What  bills  on  any  subject  have  been 
recently  introduced  in  our  legislature. 

"4.  Where  valuable  discussions  of  any 
subject  may  be  obtained." 

Whatever  subject  the  member  names,  the 
material  upon  it  is  sent  to  him  at  his  home, 
^where  he  has  time  to  go  over  it,  and  is  already 
digested.  There  may  be  a  copy  of  some  pend- 
ing bill  in  Illinois,  a  handful  of  clippings  from 
the  New  York  papers,  a  transcript  of  testi- 


HUMDRUM  WORK  FOR  GOOD  25 1 

mony  before  a  legislative  committee  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, letters  from  experts  in  various  parts 
of  the  country,  and  typewritten  extracts  from 
whatever  books  may  have  been  written  on  the 
subject  in  question.  The  member  is  no  longer 
at  the  mercy  of  the  lawyers  who  may  make 
arguments  before  the  committee.  In  the  min- 
imum of  time  he  has  acquainted  himself  with 
the  main  facts  and  principles  of  the  subject 
before  him. 

This  "  legislative  clipping  bureau,"  as  it  has 
been  called,  is  maintained  at  a  cost  of  only 
$4,500  a  year,  and  keeps  its  working  material 
in  such  compact  form  that,  although  all  its 
collections  were  destroyed  in  the  capitol  fire 
of  1903,  it  was  again  in  working  order  in  1904. 
Not  only  does  its  work  meet  the  enthusiastic 
approval  of  the  members  of  the  Wisconsin 
legislature  itself,  but  the  idea  is  already  spread- 
ing. The  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Nebraska, 
Washington  and  California  and  the  city  of 
Baltimore  have  taken  steps  to  establish  sim- 
ilar clearing  houses  of  legislation.  California 
and  Indiana  have  placed  in  charge  of  their 
work  former  assistants  to  Dr.  McCarthy,  the 
legislative  librarian  at  Wisconsin,  whose  words 
on  the  subject  of  lobbying  have  here  been 
quoted,  while  Nebraska  and  Baltimore  have 
sent    their    men    to   Madison  to  learn   the 


252  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

methods  employed  before  taking  up  the  work 
at  home. 

There  is  no  form  of  rivalry  between  the 
States  better  deserving  of  encouragement 
than  that  which  relates  to  the  quality  of  their 
laws.  New  York's  boast  of  having  the  best 
set  of  insurance  laws  in  the  country  is  a  far 
more  proper  source  of  pride  to  a  citizen  of  the 
Empire  State  than  the  unrivalled  total  of 
bank  clearings.  Wisconsin  lays  claim  in  the 
same  way  to  a  model  civil  service  law.  Be- 
fore that  measure  came  up  for  passage,  liter- 
ally hundreds  of  copies  of  the  provisional  bill 
were  sent  by  the  Legislative  Library  to  ex- 
perts all  over  the  country,  the  heads  of  State 
departments  and  the  heads  of  institutions. 
The  faculty  of  Political  Science  in  the  State 
University  worked  over  the  draft,  while  the 
secretary  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Re- 
form Association,  one  of  the  members  of  the 
National  Civil  Service  Commission  and  one 
of  the  veterans  of  the  Civil  Service  Reform 
movement  came  on  from  Washington,  New 
York  and  Boston  respectively  to  help  with  the 
law  in  person.  That  experience  at  least 
showed  how  completely  a  State,  if  it  so  chooses, 
can  avail  itself  of  the  best  thought  and  ex- 
perience of  its  neighbours.  And  it  was  a 
happy  circumstance  that,  while  Governor  La 


HUMDRUM  WORK  FOR  GOOD         253 

Follette  signed  the  new  law,  one  of  the  legis- 
lators who  did  most  to  make  the  law  a  success 
was  the  old  leader  of  the  "  Stalwarts  "  in  the 
Senate. 

The  honest  and  capable  legislator  is  not 
confined  to  any  party,  to  any  locality,  to  any 
peculiar  condition  of  general  rectitude. 
When  two  senators  like  Piatt  of  Connecticut 
and  Cockrell  of  Missouri  were  removed  from 
their  places,  one  by  death,  the  other  by  the 
turn  of  politics,  there  was  no  partisanship  in 
the  regret  which  their  colleagues  felt.  Men 
like  them,  of  ripe  experience,  wide  and  minute 
knowledge  of  the  details  of  legislation,  perso- 
nal probity  in  which  their  colleagues  trusted 
absolutely,  are  more  valuable  to  a  legislative 
body  than  most  outsiders  understand.  How 
many  times  a  simple  word  of  objection  or  a 
hint  from  some  man  of  this  type  has  defeated 
a  bad  bill  which  some  less  scrupulous  col- 
league was  planning  to  slip  through  quietly 
no  public  record  tells  or  can  tell. 

It  is  the  presence  in  the  very  worst  legis- 
latures and  councils  of  honest  and  able  men 
that  makes  the  quick  transformation  of  such 
bodies  possible.  Take  any  instance  in  which 
a  corrupt  legislature  or  board  has  been  con- 
verted into  a  **  reform  "  body,  and  it  will  be 
surprising  to  see  how  few  actual  replacements 


254  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

have  been  made.  The  leaders  of  the  new 
body  will  have  been  members  of  the  old. 
The  only  difference  is  that  they  had  then  been 
overbalanced  by  the  other  element. 

A  public  official  a  few  years  ago  delivered 
an  address  eulogizing  William  M.  Tweed, 
boss  of  New  York  in  the  seventies,  who  died 
in  jail  nearly  thirty  years  ago.  It  could  not 
be  denied,  he  said  in  substance,  that  Tweed 
and  his  associates  plundered  the  city  most 
outrageously,  corrupted  the  courts  and  de- 
moralized the  council.  Yet  with  these 
malign  influences  there  was  combined  so 
much  of  understanding  and  of  far  sighted- 
ness,  that  the  arch-corruptionist  himself  laid 
the  foundations  for  permanent  improvements, 
like  the  park  systems,  which  would  not  have 
come  for  a  generation  or  might  never  have 
come  at  all,  had  the  city's  interests  been  in 
the  hands  of  small  calibre  men. 

Of  course  this  estimate  of  Tweed  is  not  one 
which  the  impartial  historian  accepts,  but  it 
does  invite  attention  to  the  enormous  amount 
of  good  work  that  somehow  gets  itself  done 
under  even  the  worst  administrations.  The 
trouble  with  the  majority  of  public  work  is 
not,  as  so  often  loosely  charged,  that  it  is 
badly  done,  but  that  it  is  slowly  and  extrava- 
gantly done.     In  almost  any  public  office  will 


HUMDRUM  WORK  FOR  GOOD  255 

be  found  corps  of  clerks  or  assistants,  working 
in  all  probability  very  much  less  industriously 
than  would  young  men  in  the  same  line  of 
employment  in  a  bank  or  a  railroad  office. 
But  there  will  also  be  found  here  and  there 
the  honest,  faithful,  busy  men  who,  taking 
their  human  material  as  it  comes,  through  all 
political  overturns,  through  bad  and  good 
administrations,  keep  the  machinery  at  work. 
They  are  not  known  to  the  outside  public ; 
their  work  is  done  in  the  name  of  their  su- 
periors. Often  they  dread  a  promotion  that 
would  subject  them  to  the  accidents  of  poli- 
tics and  leave  them  to  hunt  employment  with 
every  new  administration. 

These  men  are  not  reformers,  to  be  sure. 
They  are  as  likely  as  not  to  vote  the  ticket  of 
the  organization  which  has  done  most  to 
lower  the  character  of  public  service.  Yet 
they  come  as  near  to  being  indispensable  as 
any  group  of  citizens  that  exists. 


XIV 

THE  TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE 
DEMOCRACY 

WITH  the  development,  or  better,  re- 
suscitation, of  a  sound,  informed 
and  vigilant  public  opinion  in  this 
country,  as  manifested  in  the  many  victories 
over  privilege  in  the  very  recent  past,  there 
have  been  developed  new  agencies  for  the 
expression  of  that  same  public  opinion. 
Roger  Sherman,  who  is  vouched  for  by 
Thomas  Jefferson  himself  as  a  man  who 
"  never  said  a  foolish  thing  in  his  life,"  told 
the  framers  of  the  constitution  that  "  the  peo- 
ple immediately  should  have  as  little  to  do  as 
may  be  about  the  government.  They  lack 
inspiration  and  are  certainly  liable  to  be  mis- 
led." Some  of  the  chief  political  movements 
of  to-day  are  being  carried  on  in  absolute 
reversal  of  that  advice.  The  people  are  as- 
suming more  direct  control  than  ever  before 
of  our  public  affairs.  The  referendum,  the 
initiative  and  the  "  recall,"  the  suggested 
"  neighbourhood  town-meeting,"  the  demand 
for  the  popular  election  of  senators,  the  un- 
256 


TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE  DEMOCRACY   ^57 

precedented  growth  of  independent  voting, 
and  ballot  reform,  may  properly  be  considered 
as  merely  different  aspects  of  a  larger  tend- 
ency, which  is  bringing  this  nation  even 
while  it  grows  in  size,  closer  to  the  conditions 
of  a  pure  democracy. 

The  referendum  itself,  the  quintessence  of 
direct  popular  participation  in  the  govern- 
ment, is  as  yet  a  question  chiefly  for  the 
future.  As  Frank  Foxcroft  recently  wrote  : 
"It  is  perfectly  safe  to  predict  that  in  the 
thirty-five  or  forty  legislatures  which  will  be 
in  session  next  year  advocates  of  the  initia- 
tive-referendum will  hold  the  centre  of  the 
stage."  At  the  same  time  hardly  more  than 
a  fair  beginning  has  been  made  in  introduc- 
ing the  system  to  this  country.  The  optional 
referendum,  under  which  a  certain  proportion 
of  the  voters  can  compel  the  submission  on 
the  ballot  of  any  bill  passed  by  the  legisla- 
ture, has  been  adopted  by  South  Dakota, 
Utah,  Oregon,  Nevada  and  Montana.  Ore- 
gon South  Dakota  and  a  number  of  cities 
have  the  initiative,  which  permits  the  placing 
of  a  particular  law  on  the  ballot  by  petition 
and  makes  possible  its  passage  through  the 
referendum  without  any  action  of  the  legisla- 
ture at  all.  The  woman  suffrage  provision 
voted  down  in  Oregon  in  the  spring  of  1906 


258  AMERICANS  AWAKENING 

represented  the  first  attempt  made  in  this 
country  to  amend  a  state  constitution  with  no 
action  whatever  by  the  legislature.  Illinois, 
Texas  and  Delaware  have  modified,  advisory 
systems  of  direct  legislation.  In  all  the  states, 
however,  the  practice  of  submitting  new  laws 
to  the  people  by  special  act,  as  was  done  with 
Wisconsin's  new  primary  law,  seems  to  be  be- 
coming more  common,  while  as  regards  consti- 
tutional amendments  and  questions  of  taxa- 
tion, the  referendum  is  already  nearly  univer- 
sal in  this  country.  The  recall,  which  permits 
voters  to  take  an  official  out  of  office  by  a 
legal  process  closely  analogous  to  that  by 
which  they  put  him  in,  first  developed  in  Los 
Angeles,  has  been  copied  only  by  Seattle 
and  a  small  group  of  California  cities.  We 
have  seen  repeated  proposals  to  establish  a 
sort  of  neighbourhood  town-meeting  by 
which  city  voters  might  be  brought  closer  to 
the  questions  of  government  affecting  their 
interests,  and  Newport  by  adopting  a  city 
charter  providing  for  a  council  of  195 
members,  is  making  a  similar  effort  to  shorten 
the  gap  between  the  law  makers  and  the 
people  themselves. 

The  advocates  of  popular  election  of 
United  States  senators  are  working  to  ac- 
complish somewhat  the  same  thing  for  what 


TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE  DEMOCRACY    259 

has  hitherto  been  the  least  responsive  of 
legislative  bodies  to  popular  sentiment.  The 
House  of  Representatives  has  five  times  passed 
a  resolution  for  changing  the  mode  of  election 
to  the  other  body,  and  such  a  measure  has 
once  been  reported  by  a  Senate  Committee. 
Moreover,  as  Professor  George  H.  Haynes 
records  in  his  recent  book  on  the  Election  of 
Senators,  thirty-one  State  legislatures  have 
taken  action  favouring  popular  election. 
Committees  of  Correspondence  on  good 
colonial  models  have  been  established,  and 
at  the  date  of  this  writing  preparations  are 
making  for  a  meeting  of  state  representatives 
in  Iowa  to  discuss  ways  and  means  of  bring- 
ing about  the  desired  change.  It  has  been 
practically  agreed  that  the  first  of  the  author- 
ized methods  of  amending  the  Constitution, 
which  involves  the  assent  of  the  Senate  itself, 
had  best  be  abandoned  for  the  alternative 
plan,  under  which  two-thirds  of  the  states 
may  require  the  calling  of  a  constitutional 
convention  to  propose  amendments,  a 
method  which  has  remained  unused  since 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  itself. 

It  has  been  frequently  pointed  out  that, 
while  the  agitation  for  the  legal  election  of 
senators  by  popular  vote  has  thus  far  been 
ineffectual,  a  good  many  states  have  adopted 


26o  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

the  next  best  plan  by  nominating  party  can- 
didates for  every  vacant  senatorship  and 
trusting  that  the  legislature,  when  the  time 
comes,  will  elect  the  candidate  already  picked 
out  by  the  party  which  has  a  majority.  The 
Southern  States,  where  the  Democratic  nom- 
ination is  equivalent  to  election,  were  the  first 
to  develop  this  method,  though  Nebraska,  as 
long  ago  as  1875,  adopted  a  constitution  per- 
mitting the  placing  of  names  of  senatorial 
candidates  on  the  official  ballot  for  the  later 
guidance  of  the  legislature.  The  biograph-. 
ical  sketches  in  the  official  Congressional  Di- 
rectory give  many  illustrations  of  the  spread 
of  these  systems  of  virtual  popular  election. 
Senator  Foster  of  Louisiana,  who  properly 
belongs  to  the  class  of  senators  whose  terms 
expire  in  1907,  was  so  certain  that  the  legis- 
lature would  merely  ratify  the  choice  of  the 
Democratic  primary,  that  at  the  beginning  of 
the  1905  session  his  biography  was  made  to 
state,  *'  his  term  of  service  will  expire  March 
3,  1913."  Legally  no  1913  class  yet  exists  at 
all.  Senator  Latimer  of  South  Carolina  made 
no  mention  whatever  of  the  legislature  to 
which  he  legally  owed  his  seat.  "  He  was 
elected  to  the  United  States  Senate,"  says 
the  Directory,  "by  17,700  majority  over 
J.  G.  Evans."     Besides  these,  there  are  the 


TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE  DEMOCRACY   261 

senators,  like  Dubois,  of  Idaho,  and  Hop- 
kins, of  Illinois,  who  were  nominated  by  the 
state  conventions  of  their  respective  parties 
exactly  as  gubernatorial  candidates  would 
have  been.  Thirty  vacancies  will  occur  in 
the  Senate  in  1907.  Fifteen  of  these  have 
already  been  filled  at  the  date  of  this  writing 
(September,  1906),  or  will  be  filled  by  methods 
that  approximate  popular  election.  Alabama, 
Arkansas,  Georgia,  Illinois,  Kentucky,  Lou- 
isiana, Mississippi,  Oregon,  South  Carolina, 
Tennessee,  Texas  and  Virginia  employ  the  di- 
rect primary  under  either  state  law  or  party 
rule.  North  Carolina  reelects  without  a 
primary  a  senator  chosen  originally  by  direct 
vote.  Idaho,  South  Dakota  and  Nebraska 
will  have  candidates  nominated  in  convention 
along  with  the  state  tickets,  while  in  New 
Jersey  and  doubtiess  other  states  campaigns 
for  the  senatorship  are  so  active  that  most 
legislative  candidates  will  make  pledges  upon 
the  senatorship  part  of  their  individual  plat- 
forms. It  is  not  at  all  visionary  to  expect, 
with  the  laws  already  enacted  and  the  cam- 
paigns for  the  direct  primary  now  going  on 
in  states  like  Iowa,  Washington  and  Mary- 
land, that  within  the  next  ten  years,  before 
any  popular  election  amendment  could  prob- 
ably be  passed,  a  full  half  of  the  Senate  will 


262  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

be  virtually  chosen  by  the  people  in  one  or 
the  other  of  the  ways  here  described. 

The  direct  primary  and  the  growth  of  in- 
dependent voting  are  commonly  considered 
separately,  but  their  close  logical  relation 
will  be  seen  by  a  moment's  analysis  of  that 
boss  domination  which  both  are  doing  their 
part  to  cure. 

The  circle  of  a  boss's  power  is  complete 
only  when  he  has  control  over  the  nomina- 
tion of  candidates  and  when  the  body  of 
voters  will  make  a  fetish  of  "  regularity,"  ac- 
cepting without  question,  every  nomination 
that  bears  the  requisite  party  label.  Ob- 
viously this  power  is  no  stronger  than  its 
weakest  part.  If  the  boss  cannot  confer 
nominations  within  reasonable  limits  upon 
whom  he  will,  he  has  lost  his  sway,  no  mat- 
ter how  slavish  the  members  of  his  party  are 
in  voting  the  straight  ticket.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  most  perfect  control  of  the  nomi- 
nating machinery  avails  him  very  little  if  his 
people  have  no  scruples  against  voting  the 
ticket  of  the  other  party  when  he  offers  a 
man  whom  they  do  not  like.  We  have  seen 
in  various  places  and  at  various  times  in  this 
country  all  degrees  of  absolutism  in  our 
bosses.  Individuals  among  them  have  been 
defeated  over  and  over  again,  sometimes  by 


TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE  DEMOCRACY    263 

overriding  their  will  in  the  making  of  nomi- 
nations and  sometimes  by  a  secession  of 
their  followers  to  the  other  party.  It  has 
been  an  axiom  of  the  politicians  that  two 
such  defeats  seldom  or  never  come  in  suc- 
cession. But  in  the  last  few  years  signs 
have  developed  of  a  decided  weakening  of 
the  boss's  power  at  both  of  the  points  here 
discussed.  Because  the  weakening  seems  to 
be  in  its  very  essentials  there  is  unusual 
ground  for  hope  that  it  may  be  lasting. 

It  is  through  the  direct  primary,  of  course, 
that  the  people  are  assuming  control  over  the 
making  of  party  nominations.  And  one  sin- 
gular fact  about  the  spread  of  this  reform  in 
the  North  has  been  its  adoption  by  state 
after  state  practically  before  it  has  been  tested. 
La  Follette's  proposal  to  have  United  States 
senators  nominated  in  the  primary  was  criti- 
cised as  dangerous  and  almost  revolutionary 
no  longer  ago  than  1902.  That  feature  of 
the  Wisconsin  law  will  not  be  tried  till  1908, 
yet  the  next  two  states  to  pass  primary 
laws,  Illinois  and  Oregon,  both  adopted  it  on 
faith.  The  direct  primary  is,  indeed,  a  splen- 
did example  of  the  way  in  which  an  idea  can 
prevail  in  this  country  on  purely  theoretical 
grounds.  A  few  States  were  willing  to  take 
the  risk  of  an  experiment  with  the  new  plan, 


264  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

yet  their  neighbours,  convinced  that  it  is 
intrinsically  right,  have  followed  on  without 
waiting  to  see  how  the  experiments  turn  out. 
But  while  the  direct  primary  idea  has  now 
been  accepted  over  the  greater  part  of  the 
country,  there  has  not  been  perfect  satis- 
faction in  working  out  its  details.  The 
question  of  separating  the  voters  into  parties 
for  the  purpose  of  nominating  is  still  puzzling. 
Whether  the  citizen  is  allowed  to  vote  in  the 
primary  of  any  party  he  pleases,  or  is  re- 
quired to  announce  his  party  allegiance 
beforehand,  members  of  one  party  will  some- 
times "  pack  the  other's  caucuses "  just  as 
they  did  under  the  older  and  looser  system. 
There  is  also  some  uncertainty  as  to  nomina- 
tions by  a  mere  plurality.  But  in  exchange 
for  those  incidental  difficulties  and  some 
additional  expense  the  direct  primary  puts  an 
end  to  the  old-fashioned  "  stampedes "  of 
conventions,  the  trumping  up  of  contests  and 
the  grosser  forms  of  chicanery,  besides  bring- 
ing out  to  participate  in  nominations,  ac- 
cording to  estimates  in  different  localities, 
from  two  to  ten  times  as  many  voters  as  was 
usual  under  the  old  system,  an  achievement 
alone  worth  all  the  trouble  that  it  has  cost. 

In  the   annexed   map   are   shown   graph- 
ically the  localities  having  the  direct  primary, 


PRIMARY   LAWS 

Since  no  two  States  have  primary  laws  exactly  alike,  this  clas 
first  class  includes  the  States  which  nominate  all  candidates  by  c 
which  nominate  thus  for  certain  offices  only.  The  third,  thos 
organizations  have  created  direct  primary  systems  without  a 
those  in  which  nominating  conventions  are  still  held,  but  the 
actual  election.  As  regards  the  direct  nomination  feature,  \ 
have  made  practically  no  use  of  the  right,  while  others 
from   information    furnished    by    Dr.    Charles   McCarthy,    Li 


^HE  UNITED  STATES 

tion  necessarily  takes  into  account  only  the  main  characteristics.  The 
vote,  holding  no  State  conventions  at  all.  The  second  includes  those 
which  direct  nominations  are  optional.     In  the  fourth  class  the  party 

by  the  legislative  authority.  The  States  in  the  last  group  are 
ce  of  delegates  is  safeguarded  by  law  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
tates  classed  as    "optional"    vary  greatly.     Some,  like   New  York, 

virtually  discontinued  conventions.  This  map  is  compiled  chiefly 
m  of    the    Legislative    Reference   Library  at  Madison,    Wisconsin. 


TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE  DEMOCRACY    265 

compulsory  or  optional,  for  state  or  local 
offices,  whether  by  law  or  party  rule,  together 
with  those  which  have  the  legalized  but  not 
the  direct  primary  for  the  choice  of  delegates. 

All  party  nominations,  however,  depend 
for  their  peculiar  value  on  the  number  of 
people  who  will  vote  them  regardless  of  per- 
sonal preferences.  If  such  people  did  not 
make  up  the  rank  and  file  of  parties,  and  a 
candidate  had  to  throw  himself  on  the  mercy 
of  citizens  who  considered  his  case  individ- 
ually and  compared  him  with  his  several 
opponents,  he  might  almost  as  well  run  as 
an  out  and  out  independent,  having  his  name 
put  on  the  ballot  by  petition,  like  Mr.  Jerome's. 
"  I  have  no  patience,"  declared  Mr.  Hanna, 
"  with  the  man  who  bolts  his  party  because 
he  is  not  satisfied  with  the  candidate." 

That  is  the  feeling  against  which  inde- 
pendent voting  everywhere  has  had  to  con- 
tend, yet  that  the  independents  do  hold  the 
balance  of  power  in  this  country  is  sufficiently 
shown  by  the  fact  that  our  elections  do  not 
always  result  the  same  way.  If  every  voter 
accepted  the  politicians'  theory  they  would. 
Only  an  epidemic  to  which  membership  in 
one  party  conferred  immunity  could  ever 
make  a  state  or  a  city  Democratic  one  year 
and  Republican  the  next     Jt  is  difficult  to 


266  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

determine  the  exact  amount  of  independent 
voting,  however,  and  one  reason  for  this  is 
that  the  term  is  used  in  two  different  senses. 
It  may  mean  that  voters  shift  from  one  side 
to  the  other  between  elections,  or  that  they 
exercise  discrimination  between  candidates  of 
the  same  party  at  a  given  election.  Generally 
speaking,  those  who  are  independent  in  the 
one  sense  ought  to  be  in  the  other,  but  this  is 
not  invariably  the  case  in  practice. 

If  we  are  to  choose  one  of  these  definitions 
for  the  purpose  of  gauging  the  actual  amount 
of  independent  voting  during  a  series  of  years, 
the  discrimination  between  candidates  gives 
much  the  fairer  criterion.  If  the  attempt  be 
made  to  calculate  the  shift  of  votes  between 
elections  the  "  stay  at  home  "  vote  presents 
an  immediate  complication.  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
tremendous  plurality  in  1904,  for  instance, 
was  not  due  to  the  Democrats  who  for  once 
voted  the  Republican  ticket,  but  to  the  Dem- 
ocrats who  did  not  vote  at  all.  There  were 
really  about  three  Democratic  deserters  to 
one  Republican  recruit  and  the  total  vote  in 
the  year  of  this  unprecedented  victory  was 
actually  smaller  than  in  either  of  the  elections 
since  1892. 

The  degree  of  discrimination  between  can- 
didates for  different  offices,  however,  can  be 


TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE  DEMOCRACY   267 

computed  with  a  fair  degree  of  accuracy. 
This  is,  in  another  form,  simply  the  question 
how  far  a  popular  candidate  runs  "  ahead  of 
his  ticket."  If  every  voter  accepted  the 
politician's  theory  no  candidate  would  ever 
run  ahead  of  his  ticket.  As  it  is,  the  practice 
of  ticket  splitting  constitutes  a  most  effective 
veto  upon  distasteful  nominations.  Its  prev- 
alence is  the  inverse  measure  of  a  bad  candi- 
date's chance  of  being  "  pulled  through  "  by 
the  good  nominees  of  the  same  party.  So 
the  spirit  of  intelligent  independence  deserves 
to  be  encouraged  no  more  by  the  theorist 
than  by  the  strong  partisan  who  believes  in 
making  his  party  maintain  a  high  standard 
for  the  men  it  puts  into  office. 

Now,  while  willingness  to  change  from  one 
party  to  the  other  has  always  been  a  charac- 
teristic of  the  American  electorate,  this  dis- 
crimination between  the  several  candidates  of 
the  same  party  has  had  a  sudden  and  strik- 
ing growth  only  within  the  last  few  years. 

The  simplest  way  to  demonstrate  this  will 
be  to  determine  the  proportion  of  voters  who 
at  each  election  have  made  opposite  decisions 
upon  state  and  national  issues,  preferring  a 
president  of  one  party  and  a  governor  of  the 
other.  The  calculation  is  rather  a  com- 
plicated one  and  need  not  be  recapitulated 


268  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

here.  It  is  necessary  to  leave  out  entirely 
those  southern  states  in  which  there  is  prac- 
tically no  opposition  party,  to  make  proper 
allowance  for  the  numerous  instances  of 
fusion  between  one  of  the  great  parties  and 
the  Populist  or  other  minor  party,  and 
finally  to  make  separate  calculations  for  the 
group  of  states  in  which  a  given  party's  state 
candidates  ran  ahead  of  the  national  and  the 
group  in  which  they  ran  behind.  The  final 
results,  however,  can  be  stated  in  extremely 
simple  terms. 

In  1896  the  net  proportion  of  persons  who 
voted  for  one  party's  candidate  for  president 
and  the  other's  for  governor,  the  country 
over,  was  only  .38  of  one  per  cent. 

In  1900,  the  corresponding  figure  was  1.22 
per  cent. 

In  1904  it  was  7.57  per  cent. 

That  is  to  say,  the  voters  of  this  country 
manifested  at  the  last  presidential  election 
more  than  six  times  as  much  discrimination, 
as  they  had  four  years  previous,  and  more 
than  nineteen  times  as  much  as  at  the  elec- 
tion before  that. 

So  much  for  the  general  average.  In  par- 
ticular states,  the  record  went  far  above  these 
figures.  If,  in  each  state,  whether  it  elected 
a  governor  or  not,  we  compare  the  vote  of 


TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE  DEMOCRACY   269 

the  party's  candidate  who  ran  best  with  the 
one  who  ran  worst,  we  find  ten  states  in 
which  the  degree  of  discrimination  was  ten 
per  cent,  or  over.  These  were  Minnesota, 
31.07  per  cent,  Washington  22.63  P^r  cent, 
Montana,  18.38  per  cent.,  Michigan,  17.01 
per  cent,  Kansas,  16.51  per  cent,  Massa- 
chusetts, 15.00  per  cent,  Nevada,  14.27  per 
cent,  Wisconsin,  12.99  per  cent.,  Rhode  Is- 
land, 11.87  per  cent,  and  Wyoming  10.34  P^r 
cent  In  all  the  previous  presidential  elec- 
tions a  study  of  the  returns  discovers  only  one 
instance  above  ten  per  cent.  After  the 
election  returns  were  completed  in  1904,  a 
Minnesota  Republican  resented  rather  hotly 
the  assertion  that  his  state  had  made  the 
highest  record  in  the  Union  for  independent 
voting.  "  That  wasn't  independent  voting," 
he  exclaimed.  "  It  was  merely  that  they 
wanted  a  Swede  for  governor."  But  even 
granting  his  point,  the  essential  fact  is  that 
some  seventy-five  thousand  Minnesotans  did 
not  allow  their  desire  for  a  Swede  governor  to 
interfere  with  their  desire  for  Roosevelt  as 
president  Lincoln  Steffens  explained  the 
election  of  the  notorious  "  Doc "  Ames  as 
Mayor  of  Minneapolis  on  the  ground  that 
"The  great  American  people  cannot  be 
trusted  to  scratch  a  ticket."     Yet  that  same 


270  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

city,  in  1904,  two  years  after  he  wrote,  went 
far  beyond  even  the  record  breaking  State 
in  the  extent  of  its  ticket  scratching,  having 
forty-nine  per  cent,  to  thirty-one  per  cent, 
in  the  State  as  a  whole.  On  the  same  ballot 
it  gave  Republican  presidential  electors  22,000 
plurality,  a  Democratic  governor  11,000  and 
a  Republican  mayor  200  plurality,  the  last 
candidate  being  the  very  man  who  as  acting 
mayor  had  been  at  the  head  of  the  municipal 
housecleaning  after  Ames  ran  away  in  1902. 
If  any  one  objects  to  the  word  "  independ- 
ence "  let  him  simply  say  that  these  figures 
represent  the  limits  which  voters  set  on  their 
responsibility  for  putting  through  the  entire 
ticket  of  the  party  in  the  principles  of  which 
they  believe.  Local  elections,  for  instance, 
are  no  longer  regarded  as  "  straws  "  to  fore- 
cast the  state  or  national  result. 

Manifestly,  then,  whether  it  be  a  good 
thing  or ,  not,  the  tether  of  partisanship  has 
been  greatly  lengthened.  Men  are  less  will- 
ing to  accept  the  voucher  of  the  party  or- 
ganization at  its  face  value.  The  process 
which  the  average  citizen  goes  through  be- 
fore election  day  has  become  more  com- 
plicated. Instead  of  merely  deciding,  "  Shall 
I  support  the  Republican  or  the  Democratic 
ticket?"  he   has    begun   asking  himself  as 


TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE  DEMOCRACY   271 

well,  "  Are  there  any  of  that  party's  nominees 
who  do  not  deserve  my  support?"  There  is 
less  response  to  the  old  demand  for  presi- 
dential year  regularity. 

But  this  growth  of  independent  voting  in 
itself  ought  to  focus  attention  on  the  mechan- 
ism of  voting.  "  The  Australian  ballot "  still 
covers  a  multitude  of  tricks  and  hampering 
devices.  It  is  stated  in  many  of  the  political 
hand  books  that  all  but  three  of  our  states 
have  adopted  "ballot  reform  laws."  But  the 
reform  which  was  sought  at  the  time  of  the 
general  movement  of  the  early  nineties  was 
merely  the  securing  of  a  secret  ballot 
furnished  by  the  state  and  cast  under  legal 
safeguards.  The  reform  of  our  ballots  in 
such  a  way  as  to  secure  a  really  free  expres- 
sion from  the  voters,  as  we  have  already 
secured  a  fair  count,  has  been  only  begun. 

In  view  of  the  facts  it  is  surprising  how 
general  is  the  belief  that  the  ballots  used  in  all 
parts  of  the  country  are  much  the  same  and 
that  even  if  they  were  not  this  would  be  a 
matter  of  very  little  moment.  Among  the 
humours  of  the  1905  municipal  campaign  in 
New  York  were  letters  from  residents  of  other 
states  protesting  that  the  instructions  pub- 
lished for  splitting  a  ticket  in  Jerome's  behalf 
were   all   wrong.     The  statutes  of  Pennsyl- 


272  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

vania  and  other  states  with  totally  different 
ballots  were  gravely  cited  to  prove  that  the 
marking  of  a  single  cross  was  not  the  proper 
way  to  vote  for  the  Independent  district  at- 
torney. Really  a  classification  of  the  ballots 
in  use  in  this  country,  if  it  concerned  itself 
with  all  their  multifarious  features,  emblems 
and  their  absence,  position  of  the  marking 
space,  rules  for  marking  and  the  like,  would 
scarcely  leave  any  two  under  the  same  caption. 
But  with  reference  to  the  relative  ease  of  inde- 
pendent voting  the  whole  forty-five  may  be 
embraced  in  four  main  groups. 

The  official  ballot  may  be  a  narrow  strip  or 
a  blanket  sheet :  it  may  have  the  candidates' 
names  arranged  in  party  columns  or  in  groups 
by  offices,  but  the  vital  consideration,  in  this 
connection,  is  whether  there  is  a  series  of 
"  party  circles  "  or  its  equivalent  and  if  so, 
whether  the  party  circles  are  for  the  exclusive 
use  of  the  man  who  "  votes  her  straight,"  or 
may  be  marked  by  the  split  ticket  man  as 
well. 

To  illustrate,  suppose  that  at  a  certain 
election,  ten  elective  positions  are  to  be  filled. 
Peter  and  Paul  go  to  the  polls  together,  Peter 
intending  to  vote  for  ten  Republicans,  while 
Paul  prefers  nine  Republicans  and  one  Demo- 
crat.    If  they  live  in  Massachusetts  they  must 


TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE  DEMOCRACY   273 

each  mar>k  the  names  of  their  chosen  candi- 
dates sepaTittxf  .y  and  are  on  an  exact  equality 
•  with  ten  crosses  apiece.  If  they  live  in  New 
York,  they  each  make  one  mark  in  the  Re- 
publican party  circle,  while  Paul  thereafter 
makes  a  second  mark  opposite  the  name  of 
his  chosen  Democrat.  If  they  live  in  Michi- 
gan, Paul,  besides  his  extra  mark,  has  to  draw 
a  line  through  the  name  of  the  Republican 
nominee  for  the  same  office,  which  is,  after 
all  a  very  simple  and  natural  thing  for  him  to 
do.  If  they  live  in  Indiana,  Peter  makes  his 
single  mark  in  the  Republican  circle  as  be- 
fore, but  Paul  this  time  is  not  allowed  to  do 
so.  He  must  mark  his  nine  Republicans  and 
one  Democrat  separately.  If  they  live  in 
Missouri,  finally,  both  Peter  and  Paul  select 
the  Republican  ballot  from  a  bundle  of  sepa- 
rate strips  handed  them  at  the  polls,  and 
Paul,  scratching  out  one  name,  writes  in  that 
of  his  Democrat,  while  Peter  deposits  his  slip 
unaltered. 

It  is  not  much  trouble  to  vote  in  any  case. 
And  yet,  as  this  hypothetical  case  shows, 
while  some  states  put  the  straight  party  men 
and  the  independent  on  a  perfect  equality, 
others  impose  double  the  mechanical  effort, 
such  as  it  is,  on  the  latter,  and  states  of  still  a 
third   class  give  him  actually  ten  times  as 


274  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

much  marking  to  do.  Yet  it  is  one  of  the 
most  familiar  of  assertions  that  the  straight 
ticket  circle  is  merely  a  convenience,  the  ma- 
jority want  to  vote  straight  tickets  anyhow, 
and  the  slight  handicap  does  not  in  reality 
discourage  independent  voting. 

Let  us  see  how  much  truth  there  is  in  this 
belittling  argument.  We  have  already 
stated  the  actual  amount  of  discrimination  in 
voting  by  means  of  percentage  figures.  It  is 
only  necessary  now  to  compare  class  with 
class  according  to  the  distinction  just  made. 

There  are  four  states  where,  in  the  hypo- 
thetical election,  Paul  would  be  put  to  ten 
times  as  much  trouble  as  Peter.  The  average 
range  of  discrimination  in  voting  in  these 
states  was  in  1904,  4.85  per  cent.  There  are 
thirteen  states  where  Paul  would  be  put  to 
twice  as  much  trouble  as  Peter.  In  these  the 
average  of  discrimination  was  7.91  per  cent. 
There  were  five  states  where  Peter  and  Paul 
would  make  the  same  number  of  marks,  and 
in  these  the  average  of  discrimination  was 
18. 1 1  per  cent,  more  than  thrice  that  in  the 
first  group. 

It  may  be  added  that  a  comparison  shows 
precisely  the  same  result  if  the  presidential 
vote  be  eliminated  and  the  comparison  be 
made  by  state  tickets  alone,  or  if  the  candi- 


TREND  TOWARDS  A  PURE  DEMOCRACY   275 

dates  for  governor  be  also  eliminated  and 
only  minor  state  offices  be  considered.  This 
last  comparison  gives,  in  a  way,  the  fairest 
test  of  all,  for,  though  the  personality  of  a  few 
popular  candidates  for  the  important  office  of 
governor  might  greatly  swell  the  apparent 
amount  of  independent  voting  by  the  former 
comparisons,  no  such  factors  would  affect  the 
returns  for  state  treasurers,  auditors,  dairy  and 
food  commissioners  and  the  like. 

It  is  not  a  theory,  therefore,  but  a  demon- 
strable fact,  that  the  form  of  the  ballot  affects 
powerfully  the  result  of  our  elections.  It 
seems  to  be  true  that  our  people  go  to  the 
polls  with  some  of  their  preferences  as  re- 
gards candidates  so  slight  that  if  the  ballot 
puts  obstacles  in  the  way  they  will  sacrifice 
them.  Of  the  ten  capital  instances  given 
above  for  independent  voting  as  regards 
presidential  and  gubernatorial  candidates, 
five  were  registered  under  ballot  laws  which 
required  the  marking  of  every  candidate 
voted  under  all  circumstances  and  eliminated 
the  customary  premium  on  straight  ticket 
voting. 

To  give  the  people  opportunity  to  express 
their  will  directly  upon  specific  matters  of 
legislation,  to  give  them  the  control  over 
nominations  so  long  exercised  by  the  bosses, 


276  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

to  encourage  them  in  disregarding  those 
nominations  when  they  prove  unfit,  to  give 
them  ballot  laws  which  will  put  as  little  ob- 
stacle as  possible  in  the  way  of  this  new  spirit 
of  independence — ^these  are  not  political  pan- 
aceas, but  merely  simpler  methods  for  en- 
abling public  sentiment  to  make  itself  felt. 
Some  of  them  now,  in  their  experimental 
stages,  are  working  very  much  better  than 
others.  All  of  them  are  rather  worse  than 
useless  unless  the  citizens  continue  to  use 
their  new  opportunities. 


XV 

THE  MORAL  WAVE  AND  THE  AVERAGE  MAN 

«  rT  A  HE  most  striking  result  of  the  in- 
I  surance  inquiry  in  my  opinion," 
JL  said  Charies  E.  Hughes,  counsel 
to  the  Armstrong  Committee  of  New  York, 
in  his  address  before  the  Society  for  Ethical 
Culture,  "  is  its  vindication  of  the  sound 
moral  sense  of  the  people.  .  .  .  There 
has  come  to  the  ordinary  man  in  the  street 
out  of  the  investigation  a  truer  sense  of 
values.  Of  late  the  man  who  earns  his  bread 
by  honest  toil  walks  with  a  new  dignity,  if  he 
has  nothing  to  conceal,  nothing  to  fear.  The 
uncertainty  of  the  rewards  of  dishonour  stand 
out  in  bold  relief."  "  The  benefit  of  a  cru- 
sade against  crimes  of  this  nature  (bribery)," 
says  Governor  Folk  of  Missouri,  "  cannot  be 
measured  by  the  number  of  men  in  stripes. 
The  awakening  of  the  public  conscience  to 
the  necessity  of  stamping  out  offenses  that 
strike  at  the  heart  of  free  government  was 
the  main  thing  accomplished." 

This  country  had  an  unexampled  succession 
of  revelations  regarding  political  and  busi- 
277 


278  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

ness  methods,  together  with  a  series  of  suc- 
cessful campaigns  conducted  upon  what  are 
fundamentally  moral  issues.  If  the  result  of 
all  this  has  been  a  real  "  bracing  "  of  the 
average  American,  making  him  a  little  more 
scrupulous  in  his  own  dealings,  and  giving 
him  a  littie  stronger  sense  of  personal  re- 
sponsibility, then  this  is  an  achievement  in- 
comparably more  important  than  the  jailing 
of  a  few  rascals,  the  replacement  of  a  few  bad 
officials  by  good  officials,  and  the  writing  of 
a  few  model  laws  upon  the  statute  books. 
Not  only  are  the  implications  of  such  a  new 
standard  almost  infinite,  but  it  furnishes  the 
only  reasonable  hope  of  permanent  results 
from  the  good  work  that  has  already  been 
done.  So  it  is  worth  inquiring  what  evidence 
there  may  be  for  the  notion  that  in  undertak- 
ing to  eradicate  certain  conspicuous  evils  in 
politics  and  business,  the  American  people 
have  really  made  a  beginning  at  purifying 
themselves. 

The  first  evidence  is  found  in  the  fact, 
stated  so  often  and  on  such  good  authority 
as  to  deserve  judicial  notice,  that  business 
men,  although  naturally  so  greatly  in  fear  of 
anything  "  unsettling,"  have  given  support 
to  the  work  of  "  cleaning  up  "  in  the  past  two 
years.     If  they  have  not  cooperated  unani- 


MORAL  WAVE  AND  AVERAGE  MAN     279 

mously  or  whole-heartedly,  they  have  at 
least  done  more  than  any  of  the  men  in  the 
front  of  these  fights  ever  expected.  Surpris- 
ingly little  heed  has  been  given  to  the 
familiar  cry  that  the  good  work  was  "  hurting 
business."  "  I  have  profited  for  years  by 
these  very  practices,"  said  a.  western  manu- 
facturer when  the  campaign  against  railroad 
rebates  came  to  a  head  in  his  state,  "  but  I 
say  *  Go  ahead.'  "  It  may  be  overstatement 
to  call  such  men  "  typical  "  of  this  period  of 
militant  reform,  but  at  least  they  have  not 
been  altogether  exceptional. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  depend  upon  mere 
conjecture  or  general  impressions,  however, 
for  proof  that  the  awakening  of  the  nation's 
moral  sense  is  something  more  than  a  dream 
of  sentimentalists.  There  are  data  of  the 
most  concrete  sort  by  which  the  same  con- 
ditions may  be  demonstrated.  Supposing 
that  there  has  been  such  a  thing  as  this 
moral  wave  over  the  country,  we  should  ex- 
pect its  effects  to  be  apparent  from  about  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1905.  There  had  been, 
of  course,  a  considerable  period  during  which 
sig^s  of  the  coming  upheaval  could  be  noted, 
but  that  year,  as  the  preceding  chapters  have 
shown,  represented  the  culmination  of  the 
general  movement 


28o  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

There  are  two  practical  barometers  of 
national  honesty  from  which  we  may  take 
readings  for  comparison,  before  and  after. 
One  is  the  "  conscience  fund  "  as  maintained 
by  the  national,  state  and  local  governments, 
and  the  other  the  record  of  bonded  employees 
as  reflected  in  the  tables  for  the  various 
fidelity  companies. 

"  Conscience  money "  includes  not  only 
money  restored  to  the  public  authorities  from 
whom  it  was  dishonestly  obtained  or  with- 
held, but  also  sums  owed  to  private  indi- 
viduals who  perhaps  cannot  be  found.  The 
debtor,  at  the  promptings  of  the  still,  small 
voice,  turns  the  money  over  to  the  public 
treasury,  rather  than  enjoy  it  undeservingly 
himself.  Thus,  besides  such  recorded  cases 
as  that  of  the  man  who  drove  from  Canada 
into  the  United  States  without  stopping  at  a 
custom  house,  and  afterwards  sent  to  Wash- 
ington the  amount  of  duty,  first  on  the  horse, 
then  on  the  buggy,  and  finally  on  the  har- 
ness, such  items  are  met  as  the  twenty-five 
cents  mailed  to  the  Commonwealth  of  Mas- 
sachusetts with  a  note  saying  that  it  was 
"  for  apples  taken  off  your  property  before  I 
found  Christ."  While  the  majority  of  con- 
science contributions  are  received  without  a 
syllable  of  explanation,  a  good  proportion  of 


MORAL  WAVE  AND  AVERAGE  MAN  28 1 

them  are  undoubtedly  made  as  restitution 
for  some  private  wrong  and  not  fraud  against 
the  government  itself.  Among  the  payments 
accounted  for  during  1905  was  one  of  several 
thousand  dollars  from  a  contractor  who  wrote 
that  he  was  returning  "  an  overcharge  for 
city  work."  Another  restored  "  fourfold " 
money  of  which  he  had  "  defrauded  the  gov- 
ernment "  in  some  manner  not  stated.  A 
single  dollar  came  into  the  United  States 
treasury  marked,  "  on  bill  forty-five  years 
old,  right  party  cannot  be  found."  A  woman 
forwarded  a  one-cent  stamp  "  for  having  sent 
a  letter  with  only  a  one-cent  stamp  on  it 
without  knowing  I  was  doing  wrong."  Thus 
the  returns  evidently  embrace  rather  a  wide 
range  of  individual  consciences. 

The  conscience  fund  at  Washington,  which 
is  really  only  an  item  of  miscellaneous  re- 
ceipts, dates  back  to  the  year  181 1,  when  the 
first  anonymous  contribution  was  sent  to 
President  Madison.  It  amounts  now  to 
about  a  half  million  of  dollars  and  in  a  year 
there  may  be  noted  hundreds  of  separate 
items,  large  and  small.  With  this  national 
fund  there  are  combined  for  the  following 
table  the  corresponding  receipts  for  the  three 
largest  states  and  the  three  largest  cities. 
The  first  column  shows  the  totals  for  a  period 


282  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

of  ten  years.  The  second  includes  roughly 
the  accessions  of  the  year  1905  and  the  first 
three  months  of  1906.  Different  methods  of 
bookkeeping  render  it  impossible  to  make 
the  division  at  exactly  the  same  point  for  all 
the  states  and  cities.  Here  then  are  the 
figures  for  this  species  of  ex  post  facto  hon- 
esty : 

Ten  year  period       igo^  -j- 

United  States  Treasury,  ;^ii8,452.97  ^25,741.86 

New  York  State, 

Pennsylvania, 

Illinois, 

New  York  City, 

Chicago, 

Philadelphia, 

Total,  133,801.45     27,285.42 

Total,  1896-1904,        106,516.03 
Average  for  nine  years,    11,285.42 

So  we  find  that  out  of  about  $134,000  of 
ill-gotten  gains  restored  through  the  con- 
science funds  in  ten  years,  more  than  $27,000 
came  within  this  remarkable  period  of  a  little 
more  than  a  year.  It  is  two  and  one  quarter 
times  as  much  as  the  average  for  the  nine 
years  previous. 

It  is  the  rule  nowadays  for  employees  in 
positions  of  trust  to  be  bonded  not  by  indi- 
viduals but  by  companies  which  make  this  a 


733-49 

1,623.50 

60.00 

20.00 

000,00 

60.00 

11,431.24 
72.50 

l;427-75 

154.06 
7-50 

1,302.00 

MORAL  WAVE  AND  AVERAGE  MAN     283 

regular  business.  The  records  of  these  fidel- 
ity companies,  which  in  this  way  insure 
against  dishonesty,  furnish  as  reliable  a 
criterion  of  the  faithfulness  of  bonded  em- 
ployees, as  the  records  of  the  fire  insurance 
companies  would  of  the  frequency  and  de- 
structiveness  of  fires.  The  fidelity  business 
is  young,  and  increasing  at  a  very  rapid  rate 
so  that  its  reports  year  by  year  touch  upon 
the  transactions  of  a  larger  number  of  indi- 
viduals, and  thus  become  more  fairly  repre- 
sentative of  general  standards.  The  face 
value  of  the  fidelity  bonds  outstanding  in 
seven  of  the  leading  companies  is  now 
over  one  billion  dollars.  They  cover  men  in 
all  parts  of  the  country,  of  all  ages,  $10,000 
men  and  $900  men,  tellers,  cashiers  in  banks, 
stores  and  factories,  in  fact  men  in  almost  all 
imaginable  capacities  where  personal  honesty 
is  a  requisite. 

To  find  out  whether  there  has  really  been 
any  change  for  better  or  worse  in  the  stand- 
ard of  faithfulness  among  this  class  of  men, 
it  is  only  necessary  to  find  for  each  year  the 
ratio  between  the  amount  at  risk  and  the 
total  losses.  In  the  year  1896,  for  instance, 
the  leading  companies  had  outstanding 
fidelity  bonds  to  the  total  amount  of  $282,- 
085,211  and  their  aggregate  losses  by  reason 


284  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

of  defalcations  and  bonds  otherwise  forfeited 
were  $393,349.  This  made  an  average  of 
$139  upon  every  $100,000  bond,  and  this 
proportion  may  be  used  as  a  standard  of 
comparison  with  the  subsequent  years. 

The  following  table  is  made  up  from  the 
reports  of  seven  leading  companies,  not  all 
of  which  did  business  throughout  the  ten- 
year  period.  It  should  be  explained  that  it 
has  not  been  possible  in  all  cases  to  separate 
the  fidelity  accounts  from  other  lines  of  busi- 
ness done  by  the  same  companies,  though 
the  largest  concerns  have  kindly  done  so. 
The  table  therefore  includes  a  small  amount 
of  surety  bonds.  Since  somewhat  the  same 
"  moral  hazard  "  enters  into  the  execution  of 
a  contract  as  into  the  honest  performance  of 
a  cashier's  duties,  this  should  affect  very  lit- 
tle, if  at  all,  the  conclusions  from  the  figures. 
Some  of  the  companies  have  furnished  fig- 
ures for  losses  "incurred"  and  others  for 
losses  "  paid  "  but  this  item  is  uniform  for  a 
given  company  throughout.  Here  are  the 
figures : 


FmELiTY  Bonds 

Losses  per 

Risks                   Losses 

$100,000 

1896 

$282,085,211         $393,349 

UZ9 

1897 

321,319,095           548,091 

170 

1898 

360,989,156          581,346 

161 

MORAL  WAVE  AND  AVERAGE  MAN     285 


1899 

441,905,606 

690,540 

156 

1900 

504,176,809 

657,427 

130 

I90I 

529,541,479 

976,209 

184 

1902 

592,526,582 

687,249 

117 

1903 

626,343,847 

805,067 

128 

1904 

733.477,327 

1,068,112 

145 

1905 

1,216,970,451 

1,380,157 

no 

For  the  nine  years,  1896- 1904,  inclusive, 
there  was  an  average  loss  of  $147  a  year  for 
every  $100,000  at  risk  upon  a  fidelity  bond ; 
in  1905  the  corresponding  loss  was  only 
$110.  Not  only  is  this  the  lowest  figure  for 
any  year,  but  a  comparison  by  groups  of 
years  shows  the  improvement  almost  as 
strikingly.  Thus  in  the  three  years  1903-05, 
average  losses  were  $127,  as  against  $144  for 
1900-02,  and  $149  for  1897-99.  In  the  four 
years  1902-05  losses  of  $125  are  to  be  con- 
trasted with  losses  of  $156  during  1898-01. 
Divide  the  past  decade  into  two  five  year 
periods,  even,  and  the  proportionate  losses 
in  the  first  are  $151  as  against  $136  for  the 
second. 

Whatever  the  explanation,  then,  these  facts 
are  established  :  Efforts  at  restitution  through 
the  conscience  fund  have  more  than  doubled, 
and  the  waste  through  personal  dishonesty, 
as  checked  by  the  bonding  companies,  has 
been  cut  down  by  a  clear  twenty-five  per 
cent,  since  1904,  which  was  the  year  when  the 


286  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

"moral  upheaval"  began.  It  is  even  pos- 
sible to  follow  the  results  of  the  national 
"  toning  up "  into  some  curious  side-paths. 
It  may  seem  extravagant  to  trace  any  con- 
nection between  the  insurance  investigations, 
Mr.  Jerome's  victory,  or  La  Follette's  fight 
upon  the  railroads  and  that  typical  form  of 
thoughtless  petty  dishonesty,  the  pilfering  of 
hotel  spoons  for  "  souvenirs."  Yet  letters 
from  the  managers  of  several  of  the  best 
known  hotels  in  this  country  state  that  this 
amiable  practice  has  been  noticeably  on  the 
decline  of  late. 

The  sin  of  shirking  is  tenfold  more  costiy 
and  destructive  than  outright  graft.  If  an 
occasional  individual  who  was  formerly  venal 
in  politics  and  dishonest  in  business  has 
ceased  to  be  so,  is  it  fantastic  to  suppose 
that  many  other  men  who  would  never  have 
crossed  the  criminal  line  in  any  event,  are 
also  looking  after  their  duties  a  trifle  better  ? 
Mr.  Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff  of  the  National 
Municipal  League  has  told  a  story  which 
deserves  to  be  repeated  in  this  connection. 
Shortly  after  Mayor  Weaver's  declaration  of 
war  against  the  machine  in  Philadelphia, 
Mr.  Woodruff  met  a  county  official,  a  man 
in  charge  of  a  considerable  force  of  clerks 
employed  at  routine  work,  and  remarked  on 


MORAL  WAVE  AND  AVERAGE  MAN     287 

his  unusually  healthy  and  robust  appearance. 
"  In  the  old  days,"  the  official  replied,  "  I 
had  to  do  myself  pretty  much  all  the  work 
that  was  done  at  all  in  my  office.  Now  that 
my  subordinates  attend  to  their  duties,  it  has 
relieved  me  so  much  I  have  gained  nineteen 
pounds  weight  1"  There  was  a  substantial 
result  of  reform. 

It  may  be  said  that  these  clerks  were 
frightened  into  their  unwonted  efficiency  by 
the  knowledge  that  their  tenure  was  hence- 
forth to  depend  on  their  own  work.  Yet 
few  will  deny  that  another  element  entered 
into  the  situation,  too,  and  that  part  of  the 
stimulus  came  from  within. 

Washington  correspondents  have  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that  more  letters  from 
constituents  relating  to  the  details  of  legis- 
lation have  poured  into  the  capital  this  year 
than  at  any  previous  session  within  the 
memory  of  present  lawmakers.  One  senator 
has  stated  on  the  floor  that  in  a  month  he  had 
received  five  hundred  telegrams  relating  to 
one  piece  of  public  business,  the  Smoot  case. 
It  is  probably  true  that  such  bombardments 
are  deliberately  inspired  by  organizations 
interested  in  legislation  to  a  greater  extent 
than  formerly.  Yet  it  would  not  be  possible 
to  evoke  five  hundred  prepaid  telegrams  in  a 


288  AMERICA'S  AWAKENING 

single  month  unless  the  people  were  already 
exceptionally  alert  and  interested  in  the  prog- 
ress of  events  at  Washington. 

All  the  facts  at  our  command,  then,  sup- 
port the  same  conclusion.  The  support 
given  to  the  recent  reforms  by  business  men, 
the  conscience  fund,  the  statistics  of  the  bond 
ing  companies,  down  to  the  stolen  spoons 
and  the  constituents'  letters  reveal  the  ani- 
mating spirit  of  this  remarkable  period.  On 
however  small  a  scale — and  the  conscience 
restitutions  look  ridiculous  enough  by  com- 
parison with  some  corporate  stealings — they 
show  a  tendency  which  may  work  itself  out 
in  business  as  in  political  improvements. 
There  is  more  than  a  grain  of  truth  in 
"Mr.  Dooley's"  paradox  that,  instead  of 
electing  business  men  to  purify  politics,  we 
ought  to  set  politicians  at  work  to  reform 
business. 


T 


A  + 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


FtB 


i  1959   ^ 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     001  026  645     o 


